A Different Prison
by sephiaz
Summary: She seeks to escape the confines of the palace and the King's resentful glares; he desires refuge from the Tower that imprisoned him simply for being what he is.  Have they found freedom, or just a different kind of prison? An AU prelude to DAII.
1. The Vigil

**A/N:** Not my first fic by a long shot, but first one I've ever attempted to publish. AU in some respects, alternately pretty dark and very definitely fluffy. Spoilers for Origins/Awakening. Rating will go up in later chapters. Will follow the events of Awakening and slightly beyond, focusing on in-game events only insomuch as they effect the characters and their relationships.

**Bioware** owns Dragon Age, the world of Thedas, and the people in it; I just added a few twists of my own.

My eternal gratitude to the lovely people who maintain the Dragon Age Wiki, which is an invaluable resource, both as a DA player and as a writer.

* * *

It was well past midnight when Rowan Cousland and her escort finally drew near to their destination, Vigil's Keep. The fortress loomed against the mountains, shrouded in mist, casting foreboding shadows across the already-darkened valley. Occasionally, the flicker of firelight could be seen along the ramparts – the watchmen's torches, Rowan assumed – but the distant gates were shut tight, and no other movement broke the expectant stillness. _Ahh, a warm welcome to your new home,_ she thought grimly to herself, studying the edifice with a critical eye as they marched along the uneven road, maintaining a steady pace. _It looks like something out of one of Father's ghost stories. The haunted castle, shrouded in gloom. _

The journey had taken two days' time, passing mostly in hushed silence as they traveled unseen, hooded against the damp fog that seemed to shroud the entire coastline in shadow, the very air pressing down upon them with an invisible, inexorable weight. Her escort – Mhairi, a slim, unimposing young warrior who had met up with her at the last village, had thus far intuitively kept silent except when necessary.

In truth, the fog was no match for the oppressive cloud of resentment and regret under which Rowan traveled, her mind wandering to so many previous journeys along the darkened highways of Ferelden. _Always, the future looms uncertain ahead of me. And now I face it alone._ So many times, she turned on impulse, searching for that steadying presence that had always been there, that _should _be there still. And each time, had to choke down the brief panic that rose in her chest when she saw only empty air beside her. _Alistair, you fool. Oh, you idiot._

In the months since the destruction of the Archdemon, she had lived at the palace, and Alistair Theirin's angry stares and pain-filled eyes had haunted her every waking moment. She had hoped that time might ease his frustration, that he might come to understand her reasons for sparing Loghain, that they could _at least _find some kind of balance, middle ground, friendship. But with each passing day, he only grew colder towards her, more resentful. Once upon a time, their path had seemed all but set in stone: they would be King and Queen, ruling Ferelden much as they had battled the ravages of the Blight: side by side. Instead, the long-concealed bastard prince, who wanted only to be a soldier – to be a _Grey Warden_ - was trapped in the palace with the cold and imperious Anora to call wife, and a long list of duties he couldn't even begin to grasp. Meanwhile, Rowan, raised to become a ruler herself, was the sodding _Hero of Ferelden_, her only responsibility lay in rebuilding the order that he so cherished, and the bile that he swallowed each time he uttered her name in a speech or proclamation tasted just as bitter in her throat.

The official summons to Amaranthine to take up her position as Warden Commander of Ferelden had been a blessing, a reprieve from the constant torment. Finally, she could move out of that horrible palace and begin again, attempt to put it all behind her. And yet, now that the Keep was in sight and this new beginning awaited, she found the sight almost as bitterly painful as the palace. She had escaped the weight of his eyes, but his memory rode heavily on her, and all she could see in the grim lines of the fortress ahead was the future that would never come to pass.

_It matters little_, she thought grimly to herself as she trudged along the muddy road. _It is done now, and not __all__ is lost._ She still had _some _family left to her – Fergus, working to rebuild the Cousland family name from the ashes in Highever; and Zevran, off in Antiva somewhere eliminating the remaining threats there so that he could, presumably, return to Ferelden and fight at her side. And of course, she still had _this_, the Grey Wardens, her duty and her responsibility to an order she had come to love in her own right. Strangely, she knew deep down that no matter how much she resented Alistair's abrupt and painful betrayal, part of her would do this for _him_, because she knew it was what he wanted more than anything else – to see the order restored to its former glory, to ensure that come the next Blight, no one else would suffer the tragedy and pain that they had endured.

And now they came to the final leg of their journey; in the near distance, she could hear the faint ring of steel, an occasional shout. _Training exercises, in the dark? _she thought to herself. _A bit excessive, although I suppose I should be grateful that they sent me such dedicated soldiers._ The First Warden had sent twelve Wardens from the nation of Orlais to serve under her command, to give her a working force to assist her with the daunting task of both rebuilding the order, and smoothing over the residual tensions in the region, left in a state of disarray in the aftermath of civil war.

They were drawing closer to the gate now, well within the fences of the outlying fields that surrounded the Vigil, and a sense of pervasive _wrongness_ struck her. She tensed, hands creeping upward towards the hilts of the blades crossed over her back. And then it washed through her, that cold burn, that tingling slithering sensation in her bones that could only mean one thing. "Darkspawn," she hissed at Mhairi. "Be on your guard."

Ahead of them, the gates swung open slightly, and a soldier dashed out, followed closely by three of the monstrous creatures. With a ring of steel, Rowan drew her longswords, dashing ahead to cut down the fiends before they could strike a fatal blow to the man's receding back. She felt the adrenaline rising, the battle-lust hot in her veins, as she swung the blades in sweeping, fatal arcs, cutting down the man's attackers with ease. Whimpering, drenched in blood, he stumbled, crawled to his feet, and turned to look at her. His eyes widened when he spied the heraldry emblazoned on her cuirass: two argent gryphons addorsed, maintaining a branch fesswise between them, on a field of azure. "Oh, thank the Maker you're here, Commander!" he exclaimed.

"What has happened here?" she demanded in a clipped voice.

"They came out of nowhere," the man mumbled. "No warning, they just _appeared_…"

Mhairi looked at Rowan sharply. "How could the Wardens not have sensed their coming?" she asked.

Rowan shrugged helplessly. "I would very much like to know the same thing," she replied. "There is something very _wrong _here; we should be wary." She turned back to the guard with a sympathetic nod. "Go on with you," she said gently. "Get yourself to safety; I will handle this."

"Oh…thank you, Commander," the man muttered, already moving away and down the road. "There must be a patrol out on the roads somewhere, I'll send back more help!"

Rowan's eyes were already sweeping the face of the Keep's walls, and she paused to shoot a sidelong glance in Mhairi's direction. "You have not yet taken your Joining, Mhairi..."

"I have not yet had that honor, Commander," the warrior interrupted breathlessly.

_Wonderful, an enthusiastic puppy_, she thought, mastering her irritation with an effort. "Have you encountered Darkspawn before? Did you fight with us, during the Blight?"

"I did not, Commander," the girl replied, ducking her head as if ashamed. "I entered King Alistair's service just after his coronation."

Rowan turned her full attention on Mhairi for a moment, studying her carefully. Though she could not explain exactly _why_, having known her only a short time, she had the strange and unsettling feeling that this woman was not Warden material. "Be extra-careful in there," she admonished the over-eager young woman. "You are not able to sense them as I am, so stay very close to me and follow my lead. And for the love of the Maker, keep your visor down and don't let any of their blood into your mouth, eyes, or any open wounds."

"Absolutely, Commander," the warrior replied, swallowing hard before lowering the visor on her helm.

The lower yard of the keep was a bloodied nightmare, and Rowan's vision was obscured by a brief, bold flash of painful memory, in which she could see the lanes of the Denerim Market District stretching before them, awash in fire and blood and chaos, the terrified screams of survivors riding the air like spirits under a ceiling of oppressive, dark clouds. A shake of her head drove the image away, and she eyed the layout critically; at intervals, she could see guards struggling to battle clusters of Darkspawn squads, all of them completely overwhelmed, many sorely outclassed. Directing Mhairi with little more than nods and pointed glances, she moved as silently as possible around the open space, engaging clusters of the beasts, aiding soldiers wherever she could.

What felt like hours later, they stood before the main gates leading inside the Keep proper. They had secured the yard, and already a small triage station had been erected; men bustled to and fro, gathering what supplies they could from the outbuildings.

At Rowan's elbow, Mhairi's strong frame resonated with tension and fear. "I don't understand," the girl murmured, a distinct edge of hysteria in her tone, "how could they have…"

"Mhairi," Rowan said firmly, the sharp undertone of her voice snapping the woman back to reality with a jolt. "I need you to focus, now. You know the Keep better than I do; your guidance will be imperative." She watched carefully as the young warrior took a deep, steadying breath, and nodded. "On we go, then," Rowan said quietly, and motioned her to follow as she climbed the stairs to enter the Keep.

She found herself standing in a large gate-hall, a wide and echoing chamber exposed to the open air above. To either side, raised walkways led into various rooms and hallways. Straight ahead, the siege gates had been lowered over the main entrance to the halls. Mhairi stepped forward confidently, raising an arm to point to a small platform up on the right-hand walkway. "The gate release is there," she said quietly.

With a nod, Rowan mounted the stairs, only to be met with a barred door. She slammed a fist into the heavy wood in frustration; there would be no breaking through this. "Is there another way up?" she asked Mhairi.

The warrior pointed across to the other walkway. "If that door is unbarred, we can go around, over the parapets," she explained.

Rowan immediately began crossing the large open space in long strides…and then stopped abruptly, raising one closed fist to gesture a halt, as the cold, tingling sense washed over her. _Where…?_ She looked all around, confused for a moment, then met Mhairi's eyes grimly. "Shrieks," was all she had time to say, before the ground around them erupted in smoke and shattered stone, and three hulking, keening forms surrounded them. Head down, focusing hard to ignore the wails the creatures emitted, she swung her swords almost blindly. "Stay with me, Mhairi!" she called out over the wailing din, hoping fervently that the warrior had not fallen victim to the hypnotic cries.

A minute later, she wrenched her blade free of the last ruined chest, and turned to her companion with a sigh, wiping a spot of black blood from her face. "They are the _worst_," she spat, indicating the twisted pile of elf-eared corpses. "You alright?"

Mhairi nodded breathlessly.

"Let's move," Rowan said, adjusting her grip on her weapons and continuing across the Hall floor. She climbed the steps slowly, Mhairi on her heel, all senses alert for the slightest movement. Carefully, she approached the closed door; with a pointed nod, she directed Mhairi to stand beside the door, protected by the frame. "Let's hope this one isn't barricaded," she muttered under her breath, and then her leg pistoned out, smashing the door inward on its frame.

She dashed through the door, Mhairi on her heels, and skidded to an abrupt halt, hands upraised to ward against the blast of heat that washed over her. Squinting against the unexpected glare, she took in the small space before her quickly: they were standing in a small L-shaped room, a prison holding area of sorts, with a single barred cell stretching the length of the far wall from end to end. The open area immediately before the cell was awash in fire, and standing amidst the inferno she saw a lone figure in silhouette, molten flame pouring from outstretched hands, incinerating a small cluster of flailing, nearly-dead Darkspawn. As the last of the creatures sank to the ground, wreathed in smoke, the blast tapered off, and the figure turned towards them, shaking droplets of liquid fire from his fingertips as idly as one might dash away water after washing, giving a nervous start as his eyes found them.

The man was tall and rather strongly-built for a mage, clad in slightly ragged robes of the Tevinter style, with a regal profile and longish ash-blond hair tied back from his face with a length of hide. She realized with a slight hitch of breath that he bore a marked resemblance to the King, a similarity made all the more striking by that utterly familiar expression: simultaneously sheepish and charming. Shrugging his shoulders, the mage faced them with an expression of saintly innocence firmly fixed on his lean face. "Uh…I didn't do it," he said.

_Focus, Rowan. _Her eyes went automatically to the pile of bodies at the mage's feet. Mixed in with the corpses of Darkspawn, she noted the presence of several Templar uniforms, and the reason for the man's guilty demeanor became immediately clear. Apostate, then. She could think of no good reason why he'd be locked up in _her _prison, but she'd already seen so many improbable things here tonight that this was nothing in comparison.

"Don't get me wrong," the mage was saying in a low, faintly amused tone as she surveyed the carnage, "I'm not broken up about them dying or anything. Biff, there" – here he made a vague gesture towards one of the Templar corpses – "made the funniest gurgle when he went down."

She surprised herself by almost laughing aloud. Not so much like Alistair, then. _He _would have been stammering and blushing; this man's every word was infused with a dark humor, a hint of sarcastic laughter that begged her to respond in kind. "Not too fond of them, huh?" she asked evenly.

"Oh, I know, I know, _most _people enjoy being kicked in the head to be woken up each morning. Me, I'm just so picky."

His tone never changed – that grim hilarity was still there – but Rowan's thoughts drifted back to the Circle Tower, a stubborn sense of irritation welling up as she recalled the animosity and even outright cruelty of some of the Templars there. Idly, she wondered if they had allowed Cullen to continue to serve, and decided that it was very likely they had. "What is your name, apostate?"

If the mage felt any trepidation at being so identified, he gave no sign. "You may call me Anders, my dear lady," he said, sketching a deep, formal bow.

"I don't recognize him, Commander," Mhairi said from her place at Rowan's elbow. "He was not here when I left."

The mage – Anders – took a few steps forward, zeroing in on Mhairi. "Ahh, I knew we must have missed one another...I'm sure I would remember such a _lovely_ woman as yourself." _More like Zevran than Alistair, now that I think of it,_ Rowan thought dryly, resisting the temptation to roll her eyes. "We were just stopping here on our way back to the Tower," the mage continued, turning and giving them his back as he stared down at the incinerated pile on the cobblestones. "'Just a short rest,' they said, and now they're _dead._ Such a shame."

"I don't really care what you were," Rowan said flatly, effectively shutting down the righteous tirade she could see brewing on Mhairi's face. _Bless her, she means well, but she'll have to grow up very quickly if she hopes to become one of us._

"Pretty _and _pragmatic – a striking combination," Anders drawled (Rowan _did _roll her eyes this time), turning his head slightly to shoot what he likely thought was a charming glance in her direction . "Look," he continued, "I suppose I could help you with the rest of these Darkspawn…or you could just let me go. They'll send more Templars to find me eventually; they always do."

That she could have used his assistance – used _any _assistance – to clean up this unholy mess was unquestionable. However, the bitterness that crept into his jocular tone struck a chord, and Rowan found herself picturing Cullen again. Her eyes swept down to the pile of dead things in front of the prison cell, and then back up to the tense figure that stood over them. His hands curled and uncurled at his sides, and he radiated frustration and a kind of a childlike hope, even with his back turned; sighing inwardly, she made a split-second, rather impulsive decision. "They won't if I tell them you died," she said quietly.

"Oh!" The overblown charm returned with a vengeance, along with the slightest hint of incredulity, as he spun to regard her with twinkling, gleeful eyes. "That is rather marvelous of you, to be honest."

Smiling faintly, Rowan jerked her head over her shoulder, towards the door behind her. "Head out the way we came; it should be clear. Carefully, though; some of these creatures are very good at staying out of sight until it's too late to avoid them."

The mage regarded her contemplatively for a moment, as though she were some fascinating mystical object, and then nodded. "Good luck to you then. And...thank you." With another small bow, he fled through the door behind her.

Mhairi turned a wide-eyed stare on her. "Are you _sure _about this, Commander?" she asked hesitantly.

"It would appear that I am, Mhairi, since it is done," Rowan snapped, perhaps a bit more sharply than she had intended. _Nothing for it – she really will have to learn sometime._ With one last glance at the mass of charred Darkspawn at her feet, she turned her focus to the door on the far side of the small holding area, senses on high alert. "There are more just through that door; no more than three, seems like. Be on your guard."


	2. Into the Fire

**A/N:** Expect perspective to switch between Rowan and Anders with each consecutive chapter. Anders is FUN to write...just hoping I got his voice right.

Thanks to all who have read/reviewed/favorited/etc so far!

* * *

_Such an __idiot_, Anders thought to himself as he huddled against the cold stone of the Keep. _You were already __gone__, the way was clear…she said she'd tell them you __died__, for the love of the Maker!_

He had been on the road leading away from the Keep, carefully alert for any sign of Darkspawn – _wretched, horrific creatures, and Maker do they smell of __death_– or Templars - _won't matter what she says because if they see me out here, she's not going to be able to convince them that I was a sodding __mirage__. _Plans were running through his head at a dizzying rate. Back to Amaranthine? No, they had just captured him there, and surely there were always Templars watching the ships fairly carefully. Best thing would probably be to lay low for awhile; find a bolt hole in Highever, or Dragon's Peak, maybe…

And then, of course, somewhere behind him, beyond the Keep's walls, a cry of pain had rent the air, wordless and mournful, the sound evoking a deep pull in his gut, magic spooling to his fingertips unsummoned. _They need __help__ in there, people are dying!_

Without any conscious thought or decision, he was suddenly racing _back _into the besieged Keep, headed directly for the triage station set up by the few soldiers who had remained on their feet. _Total idiot_, his brain was saying, but that same brain was also replaying the matter-of-fact, cool feminine voice saying _I don't really care what you were_, and another of his own irritating internal voices was saying, _What kind of man receives that kind of reprieve and walks away without offering to help?_ The magic, of course, had a wordless voice all its own, aching in his veins, _demanding _to be set free and put to work.

So he helped. It was the matter of twenty minutes' work to supplement the wounded soldiers' battle-dressings with healing magic and some disorientation spells to let them rest despite the frenzied sounds coming from within the Keep. And those same frenzied sounds picked away at his resolve, and he wondered idly, _is she okay in there? _The brunette had referred to her as Commander – did she command this garrison, then? Aside from the fact that she was quite lovely – sleek auburn hair, stunningly clear green-blue eyes – the fact that this Commander had just _let him go _would not leave him alone. What began as formless curiosity – _who __is__ she?_ – turned into something almost like a compulsion, almost like a _responsibility_, because how often had he faced _anyone _and simply been _allowed to leave_? And suddenly he found himself slipping back into the building, wondering all the while at his own stupidity.

He tried to follow the path of carnage left in the wake of the two women, but eventually there were too many diverging corridors and bodies _everywhere_, and then he came upon a few survivors who were hurt, huddling in corners, and he took a moment to escort them to the doors to join the soldiers. And then he took a few random turns, opened a few random doors, and he found himself on the roof. Carefully, he crept to the first bend, and stopped, holding his breath as his heart tried to beat its way out of its chest. The small platform was _crawling _with Darkspawn, and that was bad enough...but the creature standing in their midst, the _thing _that appeared to be directing them, wearing some sort of garish face paint, was even _worse_. And oh Maker, it was directing them, alright – to _toss _men off the roof! Frustration gripped him; there were four or five of them, and even a brief glance told him that he'd have trouble besting their leader, even without the help of its minions. But Andraste's _blood_, the screams of those men as they went over the side…!

As he stood there, back against the wall, craning his neck periodically to see if the monstrosity around the corner was still there – of _course _it was – he heard the door through which he had come swing open. A moment of icy fear gripped him – _way to watch your own back, Anders, you'll be pirouetting off the roof yourself any second now_ – but when he turned his head, it was the Commander walking towards him. The other woman, the mousy brunette, was still with her, and they had been joined by a red-headed dwarf. All three were liberally spattered in black Darkspawn blood.

"So, just a thought," he said conversationally, "you might want to be careful out there." He paused a moment to peer over his shoulder again, to ensure that the arrival of the newcomers had not been noted by their quarry. "I think the big Darkspawn who led the attack is out there."

She studied him carefully for a moment, one eyebrow quirked above stunning green-blue eyes. "I thought I let you go?"

_She's rather insanely gorgeous_, was the first thought that popped into his head. "I know, I know, I'm really bad at the whole 'fugitive from justice' thing," he grinned, unconsciously mimicking that raised eyebrow. "I was already on the road and I thought, well, I couldn't just _leave_…not yet. So I came to help." _(Because I can never leave well enough alone…)_

"Well," the Commander replied with a wry twist of the lips, "your help would certainly be appreciated."

"Thank me later," he said smoothly, "I'm pretty good. Trust me; you'll be mighty grateful I came back."

She rolled her eyes, but the sarcastic grin remained, even as the dwarf eyed him balefully from beneath bushy brows and growled, "Heh, comedian mage. That's a useful specialty, I bet."

"About as useful as smelling like whiskey vomit, I imagine," Anders shot back with a scowl. _And who does he think __he__ is?_

He didn't hear the dwarf's reply; he was watching the Commander. As Anders himself had done, she was peering carefully around the corner of the wall. Unlike Anders, however, she apparently had no qualms about facing the creature there, because without a word, she stepped out into the open, in full view of the interlopers.

Interlopers in question, of course, were not paying attention; the creature and its minions were standing over the kneeling form of a older, respectable-looking man in silverite mail, and one of the beasts had a disgusting, filthy sword pressed to the man's throat. "Others will come, creature," the man growled up at his captor. "They will stop you."

The Commander took this opportunity to draw the twin longswords from her back with a resounding ring of metal, and three heads turned in her direction. "It seems your words be true," the creature rasped, "more than you are guessing."

"It's…talking!" Anders exclaimed. _Darkspawn don't talk…do they? Not that you'd know the __slightest thing about what Darkspawn do, since you've seen exactly one handful of the fiends and that's been in the last hour…_

"Well," growled the dwarf, fingering the handle of his waraxe, "let's shut it up already!"

The silver-haired man cut his eyes to the side. "Commander," he gasped desperately.

"That's Seneschal Varel!" the brunette exclaimed.

The man was a second from death, and there was no time to even _think_; as the creature holding him tensed the muscles of its forearm to draw its blade across the man's throat, Anders sent a surge of magic flashing forward, encasing the seneschal in a protective force field. At the same time, the Commander drew back her arm, and _threw _one of her wickedly-curved longswords, as easily as one might toss a throwing knife, and it whistled end over end through the air with arrow-perfect accuracy and embedded itself in the Darkspawn's neck.

The Commander drew a wicked-looking dagger from a sheath at her belt and stepped forward, the dwarf coming up beside her, growling low in his chest like an angry dog. The stout little man leaned forward over his axe-handle, breath coming in short, heaving spurts, and all around him, limning him in pale red, an angry aura of sorts appeared. Anders understood immediately, and leaned forward a bit, fascinated. _Berserker rage_. He had heard tales of the dwarven berserkers, but had never actually seen one in action.

He glanced almost reflexively at the commander, and caught his breath. Her stance matched the dwarf's, and unaccountably, the same aura was spinning up from her toes to envelop her as well. _But…only dwarves have ever mastered… _His mouth dropped open in surprise at the same time her lips drew back from her teeth in a wild snarl. And then, wordless, human and dwarf gathered themselves, and _leaped _towards the oncoming Darkspawn leader, twin screams of feral rage pouring from their lips. Gooseflesh stippled Anders' skin as the sound washed over him, chilling him to the core. _Okay, that's just...creepy. Effective, but...really, really creepy._

He spent a few long moments just caught up in watching them fight, the human woman and the male dwarf. They were a blur of motion, weapons sweeping in broad strokes, bodies moving in that reactionary dance, parrying, evading, ducking, weaving. All the while, he worked on autopilot, feeding them a steady stream of rejuvenating magic, pausing briefly to fling hexes at the creature they fought. All around them, the brunette danced, slamming into the other Darkspawn with the blunt edge of a kite shield, every movement economical and powerful. So intent was he on this fight that he didn't realize the battle had been joined until he saw the magic flare around the dwarf, a hard entropic drain that had him swaying suddenly on his feet. Eyes narrowing, Anders located the enemy even as he replenished the dwarf's energy and suffused him with healing magic. _A Darkspawn __mage__?_

It was short and squat, wearing an odd headdress and hefting a gnarled, hideous staff. Even from halfway across the stone floor of the parapet, he could feel the death magic surrounding the creature like a shroud. It was in the process of casting another spell, and without taking the time to even _think_, he reacted in haste, expelling a powerful burst of raw energy that drained much of his inner reserve, but laid the creature out flat, instantly dead. Apparently Darkspawn mages were no different than human mages, or elves – raw power versus raw power always equaled an explosion.

His attention returned to the main event just in time to watch the Commander's swords sweep sideways in a massive arc, neatly taking off the talking Darkspawn's head, even as the dwarf buried his axe deeply in its torso. They stood side-by-side for a long moment, each breathing heavily, staring down at the carnage at their feet as the pale red auras faded. He held back, not wanting to be…well, cut down by those incredibly terrifying swords, it wasn't like she looked particularly _sane _at present; and then, as clarity returned to her eyes, he strode over and clasped her arm, fingers slipping under the edge of a vambrace, seeking _skin_, sending a pulse of magic upward to mend the wound that he could _see _hidden beneath the armor on her forearm with the uncanny sixth sense of a healer.

This accomplished, his eyes traveled up her incredibly blood-bathed torso to her face, in time to see her own gaze travel from the distant corpse of the Darkspawn mage _thing_ to his own face. One aristocratic eyebrow traveled upward towards her hairline. "That Emissary was…creatively handled," she said slowly.

"That…oh, the mage-type over there?" He favored her with a smug smile. "I _did _say that you'd be happy I helped, didn't I? Didn't want to make a liar of myself."

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, so I see," she said dryly. "And yet at the same time, I took a maul to the stomach and somehow, ended up with no maul-shaped holes in me. You were exploding an emissary all over the ground and still managed to…"

"Warden Commander…I owe you my life." This was the Seneschal, who had been helped to his feet by the brunette, and the comment drew her eyes immediately to his face. Anders gaped, caught midway between _Sod off while I'm being complimented by your lovely Warden Commander_, and _Warden__ Commander? This is the Commander of the Grey? _It made perfect sense, he supposed; he recalled overhearing the Templars talking about the Wardens when they had arrived, and now that he thought of it, he had heard that the order was moving into one of the northern Arlings. He simply hadn't had the opportunity to consider the notion (_forgive me if I was a little bit distracted by __not dying__ and not letting anyone else die and escaping and all that nonsense_). He eyed the Commander again, less superficially (_mostly_) than on previous inspections, wondering what great feats must be required to be named to such a position, particularly immediately following the end of a Blight.

The small group was leaving the roof now, heading down through the ravaged keep and into the yard, and Anders followed at a slight distance, wondering if _now _would be the ideal time to slip away. Of course, it was never that simple; as they swept through the outer gates and into the upper yards, they found one of the men who had been unceremoniously _tossed _off the rooftop lying there broken on the stairs, moaning unintelligibly. He never felt a slave to magic so much as he did at moments like this; even as his head was _screaming_ at him to just get out, to walk away before he drew any attention, he was already crouched at the injured mans' side, pushing waves of healing along the lines of broken bones and punctured organs.

When he had done all he could for the soldier, he stood up to find the Commander facing him, watching him rather…well, respectfully. "Thank you, Anders," she said quietly. "But I think you had better…"

The seneschal strode over to interrupt once again (_Maker's breath, man, can I not get my polite head-pat in peace?_), his face pinched. "The king is here, Commander."

_The king? Oh Maker's blood, wasn't he a Templar? _Heart hammering wildly, Anders dashed up to a small catwalk overlooking the lower yards, immediately noting the small procession of guards that was, this very moment, proceeding up the stairs to the upper yards at a fast military pace. He briefly considered just sinking down to the ground on the catwalk, out of sight, hoping for them to pass…but no, if someone questioned him and the king's guard overheard, it would only raise suspicion. _The king…he's a Grey Warden too, right? It's not like he's here to arrest me, for the love of the Maker. Just act natural, and __blend in__._

A quick survey of the upper yard found all personnel not actively involved with tending the sick, standing in a loose formation directly facing the stairs where the King would, any moment now, appear; he hurried over to join the small group, sidling up to the Commander. _Of __course__ you're not hiding behind her, you're just...being practical. Yes, that's it. _She glanced briefly at him, curiosity and a kind of vague worry apparent in her eyes before they returned to the gateway.

And then the first of the soldiers strode in. _Oh Maker, Templars!_

Anders watched the approaching vanguard with a kind of helpless terror, eyes darting left and right, wondering if they'd notice if he walked slowly and calmly away, wondering if he had any chance of just _running_, knowing it was useless. Beside him, the Commander surreptitiously grasped his wrist, the motion concealed from the sight of the others behind the dwarf's armored back. He glanced at her out of the corner of wide, slightly panicked eyes; after all they had just seen – after he had _helped_! - was she going to _restrain_ him here? But she only squeezed his arm briefly, a gesture of reassurance, and then her hand fell away as she knelt before the approaching King, and all that was left was to ride it out.


	3. Conversations with the King

**Obligatory A/N:** Rewrote this several times, in an effort to accurately capture the nuances of the complicated dynamic between Warden Commander and Ferelden King.

I should also point out that this story does require prior knowledge of Origins, to a great extent - retelling the entire tale is not my aim here. I will be going into great depth with much of the plot of Awakening, but only for the sake of character development, and also because "my" Awakening involves several changes to canon.

Thanks once again to everyone who has read/reviewed/favorited/etc.

* * *

_And just when I thought this day couldn't possibly get any worse…_

Rowan knelt on the cold ground, her impassive expression masking a seething well of frustration. _And here I thought I would be free of him…it seems that he's intent upon __following__ me to ensure he inflicts as much discomfort as possible. Why in the Maker's name is he __here__? _ Surely if there were a planned visit to the Keep at the time of her departure, someone would have thought to inform her? And yet here he was, and such _perfect_ timing – the aftermath of a disaster on a massive scale, all her Wardens lost, and the mighty King Alistair shows up to…what, gloat?

The methodical clanking of plate armor ceased abruptly, and then Alistair's carefully polite formal tone rang out. "It seems we've arrived too late to be of assistance; my apologies. I wanted to come to provide the Wardens with a formal welcome…I certainly wasn't expecting this!" Rowan rose to meet her former lover's eyes, maintaining a suitably grave expression. "What's the situation?" he asked.

Thankfully, Varel responded before she had the chance, saving her from the daunting task of formulating a reply that wouldn't result in rolled eyes and kingly disappointment. "What Darkspawn remained have fled, Your Majesty. The Grey Wardens who had arrived from Orlais appear to be either dead…or missing."

"Missing?" Alistair echoed. "As in taken by the Darkspawn? Do they even do that?"

Again, Varel (_Maker bless that man_) replied. "I do not know, your Majesty," he said gravely. "I only know that we cannot account for all the Wardens."

"That is troubling," Alistair replied, sounding sincere enough. But then his eyes traveled to her, and his tone was just slightly mocking when he said, "At least the _Hero of Ferelden _yet lives; that is something." _Try not to look too disappointed, _she thought grimly.

"You have quite the task ahead of you," Alistair continued with that same vague hint of sarcasm. "I will offer what aid I can, but it seems you will be largely on your own."

"Hey!" Oghren growled. "What am I, chopped nug-livers? I came to join the Grey Wardens, and from the looks of it, you could use the extra hands! Now where's the giant cup…I'll gargle and spit!"

"You're not allowed to spit," Rowan said automatically, and to her surprise, Alistair's smile at the comment appeared mostly genuine.

"Heh, that's what I always say," Oghren leered. Mhairi made a small sound of disgust, and Rowan had to battle the childish urge to pinch the woman – not for the first time that evening.

"Your Majesty!" The voice came from one of the Templars who had marched in with the soldiers, a wizened, unattractive woman with enormous dirty-brown eyes that bulged unbecomingly from her sallow face. She shuffled up to Alistair's side, and beside Rowan, Anders went taut as a bowstring. _Oh, Maker, the poor fool really should've run when he had the chance…_

"King Alistair, beware," the woman was saying in a hard, reedy voice, "this man is a dangerous criminal."

Alistair looked around in confusion. "I'm sorry, what…?"

"She means me," the mage said, shuffling forward slightly. Rowan watched him from the corner of her eye, rather impressed with his willingness to own up.

"This is an apostate who we were in the process of bringing back to the Circle to face justice," the woman sneered. _By the Maker__, is she a bitter little harpy or what? _

"Oh please," Anders muttered, "The things you people know about justice would fit into a thimble. I'll just escape again, anyhow."

"Never!" the Templar exclaimed, and Rowan caught a flash of that self-righteous, zealous vigor that had always disturbed her in some of the Templars. _These are exactly the kind of people who should __never__ be allowed to take the sacramental vows. _ "I will see you hanged for what you've done here, murderer!"

Anders' eyes widened almost comically. "_Murderer_? But those Templars were…" He slumped, suddenly resigned. "Oh, what's the use? You won't believe me anyhow."

Alistair, who had been watching this exchange with one eyebrow raised, shrugged his shoulders. "It seems there isn't much to say," he said. Rowan was already wracking her brain with ways to intervene when he turned a steady gaze on her and added, "Unless _you _have something to add, Commander?"

There was only one way she could really intervene here, and no more than a split-second in which to weigh her options. Did she know that the mage hadn't killed the Templars? No, but judging from the way that he seemed to be an almost _compulsive _healer, and utterly unable to leave the wounded alone, even at the risk of his own _head_, she highly doubted it. And really, did it even _matter_ if he had? _You let the man go, and he came back to help. And Maker knows, he is __good__ at what he does. _Her eyes traveled to Rylock, who was eying the man with an anticipation approaching greed, and she realized that if she let him be taken, he would very likely not live out the night. "I do, actually," she said firmly. "I hereby invoke the Right of Conscription upon this mage."

"Are you certain?" Alistair asked, eying her critically.

Fighting back a sigh, she nodded. "We need healers," she said simply.

She saw Anders' head snap in her direction at the same time the Templar erupted in fury. "What? Never!" _Oh, Maker's breath, have some dignity, you silly git_, she thought, feeling somehow instantly gratified in her decision. _I wouldn't entrust the Archdemon himself to your grimy fingers_.

Alistair, Maker bless him, didn't appear any more fond of the pretentious Templar than she was…and she knew that no matter how he might feel towards her, he would never interfere in her duties. Bitter he might be, but he wasn't _that _far gone. "The Grey Wardens _do _still retain the Right of Conscription, Ser," he said in a hard, cold voice that just _oozed _with an undertone of 'know your place, underling,' and for once, she was happy to hear it. "I will allow it."

The Templar muttered something about "your majesty's wishes" and stalked off, radiating fury and frustration, and Alistair shot her a pointed _I hope you know what you're doing_ look. A quick glance in Anders' direction found him staring at the retreating Templar with a look of stupefied wonderment in his eyes and a small smirk on his lips. _At least I made __somebody's__ day,_ Rowan thought wryly.

"Well then," Alistair continued on, "if you have everything under control, I will need to take my leave." He bowed to the Seneschal and the rest, and then turned his attention to Rowan. "Warden Commander, if I might have a word, before I go…?" Rowan took a deep breath and nodded, steeling herself as she followed him to a relatively private corner of the yard.

"How in the Maker's name did they manage to sneak up on you?" Alistair exclaimed as soon as they were alone.

Rowan bristled immediately at the poorly-veiled accusation there. "I would very much like to know that myself, _Your Majesty_," she sneered. "The Keep was already infiltrated when we arrived; we were hard-pressed to save what we did."

The grim set of his mouth relaxed, and he had the good graces to look a bit sheepish. "I see," he said, the bitter edge in his tone noticeably quieter now. "Have you been able to question anyone?"

_Heaven forbid you should apologize_, she thought as she shook her head emphatically. "You heard the Seneschal, did you not? The Orlesian Wardens are all either dead or taken. And the few soldiers that have not been wounded have been rather busy caring for those who _were_, and flushing the remaining Darkspawn from the Keep." She gazed out over the darkened yard, where small clusters of soldiers still gathered, caring for the injured or hauling bodies away. "We rescued the Seneschal from their leader mere minutes before your arrival; I have not had time to discuss it with him."

"Their _leader_?" His voice was incredulous.

"Yes, their _leader_," she shot back, wanting nothing more than to _slap _him for this infuriating interrogation when she could be helping, could be setting things in order… _You made your choice, Alistair. You abandoned this order when we needed you the most__. None of this is your concern._ Biting her tongue, she tried to rein in the anger. He _was _the king, after all, and the dangers this new information presented to his subjects _did_ make it a relevant concern for him. _Be reasonable, Rowan; this won't be the last time you deal with him, and it'll never get any easier if you fly off the handle every time._ "This is…unprecedented, at least to my knowledge," she explained in a more diplomatic tone. "Their leader was a Darkspawn – a hurlock, it appeared – and fully sentient. His speech was rough, but fully intelligible, and he was quite powerful."

His interest was piqued, now; the last of the accusatory glare left him as he pondered the concept, for which she was grateful. "An emissary? Could it be that they've simply developed the ability to communicate with others?"

"No, he had no magic; I've never heard of an emissary who did not. The Warden records indicate that they believe the magic to make their communication possible, so unless they're wrong, this is something different."

Alistair ran a hand through his hair absently, the familiar gesture evoking a brief pang in her. _How did it ever come to this? _ "I could leave a few of my men here with you, if you think it would help," he offered. "I'm afraid I can't remain, myself; there have been…troubles…in the Bannorn that I must deal with personally. I can swing by here on my way back, but…" The words trailed off, and he stood there looking young and frustrated, torn between the duty of a King, and the _need _to be a Grey Warden.

It was really incredible, Rowan thought, how very easily his naïve frustration could wring pity from her, even now, even so close on the heels of anger. "No, we'll make do with what we have; the King needs his guard," she said levelly, and rejection flashed briefly in his eyes. In truth, it _did _pain her, reminding him of his title and responsibilities, consciously causing him pain to make a point...but it had to be done. And knowing _what had to be done, _making decisions based on necessity and logic rather than sentiment, was the basis of the chasm between them, after all.

At any rate, she could ill-afford to have to worry about the King's safety amidst this mess, just so that he could nostalgically play at Warden business – even if it would have done him good. Still, she uttered the next words quietly, almost apologetically, a thin but well-meant effort to remind him of better times. "I'm used to working against dire odds with very few men at my disposal, remember?"

It was the wrong tactic. The King's face hardened, and that coldness, that baleful light that she had never expected to see in _his _eyes, descended once more. "Yes, I remember, _Commander_," he said flatly. She wondered whether it was the unwanted memory of what he had lost, or the reminder that she had faced an Archdemon with his sworn enemy – rather than himself – at her side, that rekindled the anger in him. Perhaps both. Either way, the extremely brief peace between them had ended.

Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away, his guards falling into tight formation around him as they headed for the gates. Sighing heavily, she went to find her Warden recruits and her seneschal, and get this impossible show on the road.


	4. Options

Anders stood in the middle of the yard, heedless of the cold rain that even now worked its way down the back of his neck, staring at the Commander and the King as they talked, or argued, or whatever it was they were doing...though his eyes followed them, his mind was most definitely elsewhere.

The dwarf – Oghren was his name, and apparently he had been one of the people with whom she had traveled and fought during the Blight – had briefly explained the Right of Conscription to him: he had essentially been taken from the custody of the Circle and given into the custody of the Warden Commander. Whether the gratitude that he felt was actually _warranted_ was still up for debate. Certainly, the fact that he was no longer a pawn of the Chantry was like a breath of fresh, clean air – and Maker, the sight of Ser Rylock's retreating back after the _King _himself had rebuked her was quite possibly the sweetest thing to ever greet his eyes. But...the Wardens? _That _certainly hadn't been on the agenda of _Things to do While Free of the Chantry._ Anders wasn't even sure what Wardens really _did_...obviously they fought Darkspawn, but what would it mean for _him?_ Another cage, most likely; a different prison, no less confining, even if it was duty, rather than bars, that held its inmates.

But still... _She had just saved him from the Templars._ _And _she was the sodding _Hero of Sodding Ferelden_, which made it even more absurdly improbable, not least because he had always pictured Rowan Cousland to be...well, _anything_ other than this lean, calculating aristocrat.

The King walked away suddenly, or _stormed _away, really, and she began speaking with the Seneschal again. He noticed that her face was drawn and weary, and there was a slight hint of…frustration? pain? …evident in the careful mask of calm imperturbability she wore. _King troubles?_ he wondered. He had heard that the King had been utterly furious when she recruited the Hero of River Dane into the Wardens, that he had sat out the Battle of Denerim because he refused to fight alongside the man. All pure rumor of course, there was no way of knowing for sure; but it was evident that _something _lay unresolved between the King and the Warden Commander. _Why do I even care?_ he thought as the Commander and the Seneschal began walking towards him, collecting the brunette – Mhairi was her name – and Oghren along the way.

"We must proceed with the Joining without delay," the Commander said as soon as the three of them were gathered together.

And so they re-entered the Keep, eerily silent now in the wake of battle, and gathered in the Great Hall. The Commander moved away to speak once more with Varel, who hurried off at a fast pace a few moments later, disappearing into one of the doors along the back of the hall, near the throne. _Wonder if she'll be 'holding court,'_ he thought idly, trying to picture her sitting in that pretentious seat.

This fanciful daydream proved sufficiently diverting that he didn't realize she had rejoined them at the fire until she cleared her throat pointedly. Rather pleasant reverie interrupted, he looked up to find those cerulean eyes centered on him thoughtfully. "Anders, if I may have a word...?"

He offered a charming smile, still picturing her sitting on that mabari-festooned throne (wearing...significantly less than her current uniform, of course). "As my lady commands."

The tense, uncharacteristically stiff way she moved was distracting in its own right, making plain her exhaustion as she led him through a side door and into a small, cluttered office, lit with a single lantern and dominated by a massive desk. "Shut the door, please," she said quietly as soon as they had passed the threshold.

He pushed the heavy door shut and threw the latch for good measure, and turned to find her leaning against the edge of the desk, her arms crossed over her chest, eyeing him contemplatively. _Mmm, a pre-initiation ceremony tumble, because I am just __that incredible__? _

Alas, no. "Look, Anders," she said bluntly, "Let me cut to the chase: you saved my ass, I saved yours. I'm not going to go ahead with the Joining if you don't actually _want _to be a Warden."

Anders snorted. "Well, if the choice is between the Wardens and the Circle, then sign me up."

She eyed him narrowly across the dimly-lit room. "I have no intention of sending you to the Circle, if that's what you're implying. And anyway," she added as an afterthought, "that Templar was a creepy _bitch_. Wouldn't want to give her the satisfaction." She shuddered almost delicately, a strangely effete and distinctly _noblewoman _gesture – which looked rather odd considering that she was clad head-to-toe in plate armor and still spattered liberally with blood – and a surprised cackle burst out of him.

"Well, tell me then, Commander...what else _is _there?" he asked, dropping into a worn but serviceable chair facing her.

Absently, she brushed a stray piece of gore-festooned hair out of one eye, her expression thoughtful. "Well, your best bet would be to lay low here for a few days, then travel into the city with me. No one except another Warden could tell that you hadn't actually undergone the Joining, so you could pass through the city unmolested. Then, I can see you safely onto a ship to the mage-friendly country of your choice...Tevinter, the Free Marches, whatever. On 'Warden business,' of course," she added with a smirk.

"You would actually go to the trouble of smuggling me out of the country." It wasn't even a question; the idea was preposterous.

"I would, actually," she replied flatly, and incredibly she sounded like she meant it. "Obviously, you can just _leave _if you want, you're not a prisoner here. I wouldn't _advise_ it, of course; your Templar friends appear to be holding a grudge. And if you get caught again, I can't very well tell them I let their favorite apostate _go_...the best I could do for you at that point would be to get in touch with Greagoir, tell him that you did _not_, in fact, kill any Templars while in the Vigil."

"You actually took the time to _check_?" he asked incredulously. "In the middle of all…_that_?"

She shrugged nonchalantly. "No, and I can't say I plan to…but they don't know that."

_She's the bleeding Hero of Ferelden, she's saying she would __lie__ on your behalf (for all she knows) to the Knight-Commander of the Templars…woman must've been hit too many times in the head by Darkspawn. Yep, must be it. _ "You are a really, really strange person, Commander," he muttered.

"So I've heard," she said, with just the faintest trace of a smile. "Now, of course, let me make clear that I'd be very happy to see you sign on with the Wardens and take your Joining, if that interests you. I wasn't lying out there; I desperately need healers. Really," she added in an undertone, "I desperately need _Wardens_, period."

"Well…" he said carefully, "what exactly would that entail?"

"You would be devoting your life to fighting Darkspawn. Often underground, and massively outnumbered – we spend a lot of time in the Deep Roads, where they dwell, and we generally like to travel in small groups to avoid drawing too much attention. Of course, those are _normal _conditions for us...right now, there's something _new _going on here, something that's never happened before. We've never seen sentient Darkspawn, we certainly have never seen anything but an Archdemon _leading_ Darkspawn…this is unprecedented, and that makes it dangerous. Investigating this...situation...will be the first priority, until the threat is neutralized."

"And yet you have such an avid gleam in your eye," he drawled. She really _did_, too; despite the aura of fatigue that draped her shoulders like an oppressive blanket, there was a hungry look to her, an eagerness to dispense with all the formalities and just get down to business.

"It's rewarding," she said flatly. "Rewarding, and so very _simple_. You track down Darkspawn, you kill Darkspawn. They start getting up to no good, you find out why, and how, and then you kill more Darkspawn until they stop."

"And politics _never_ enters into it?" he asked archly.

"Politics enters into _everything_, Anders," she replied, matching his sarcastic tone neatly, "but _I'm _the one who deals with all that. The rest of you just kill Darkspawn – and in your case, heal other people while they kill Darkspawn. Eventually, of course, you'd be helping me recruit and train more Wardens."

"That…makes sense, I suppose," he conceded, nodding faintly.

"For _you_, of course," she continued pointedly, "there would be additional benefits. Such as the fact that Grey Warden mages are all but immune to Chantry control. Barring you setting people on fire or sacrificing children in the middle of the market, of course: I have some political clout, but I'm not a _miracle worker_, and I can't really afford to have an Exalted March called on the Wardens_. _ But seeing as how I let you walk out of here and you actually _came back_ to help, I'm guessing that the idea of actually doing something useful instead of hiding in Tevinter probably appeals to you on some level."

"I…" he sighed, shoulders sagging. _Ship to Tevinter_ was scrolling through his head in giant flashing letters, but that familiar, maddening compulsion was tugging firmly in the opposite direction, already firmly in the 'Stay here' camp. Somehow, it was very difficult to contemplate _running _with any measure of enthusiasm, when faced with a situation where he was actually, legitimately needed. Maker knew, it wasn't a scenario he had encountered often before – well, _never_, in fact. Anyway, _immune to Chantry control_ sounded nearly as attractive: there was a definite appeal to the thought of walking freely amongst all the Templars of Ferelden, knowing he was more or less untouchable, goading them with his very presence.

"Make no mistake," she said grimly, breaking into his reverie, "it's not just as simple as a little ceremony. Do you know anything about the Joining ritual?"

"Ritual?" he repeated. "No, I assumed it was…well, a little ceremony. 'Welcome to the club,' and all that." _This is sounding a bit...ominous._

"It is a ritual," she said, "...a trial, if you will. It's highly secret, except to the mages who prepare the ritual- and the Wardens, of course. I will say this much – and even this is far more than most non-Wardens will ever know: the Joining is dangerous – fatal, sometimes. And once you get _past _the Joining…well, there is a good reason why you don't see any old Wardens walking around. There is no retirement for us: once we've taken the Joining, this is our life, and it is our death. It's not _always _fighting and darkness, of course. But it's not the kind of freedom you've probably been imagining for yourself."

With a heavy sigh, she slid off the desk and headed for the door. "Give it some thought. I'll come back when they're ready to begin, to see what you've decided." She nodded and opened the door to leave.

His mind was a million miles away, already spinning madly around all these different options, so it was pure impulse that led him to call out, "Commander!" She stopped in the doorway to look at him questioningly, and he raised a careless hand towards her, firing off a rejuvenation spell to assuage some of the lethargy.

Her eyes widened slightly as the spell soaked into her, and then she smiled at him. It was a weary smile, but a smile nonetheless, a _real_ smile, not a smirk or a politician's grimace. It transformed her face, and suddenly she looked impossibly young and lovelier than ever. "Dangerous criminal, my ass," she murmured under her breath. She favored him with another nod...a respectful nod, deferential, almost. And then she was gone.

He wasn't sure how long she left him to sit there, but he spent it burning the synapses of his brain to embers, going over _options_. The very idea was so ludicrous it was difficult to contemplate anything beyond _I don't have options, mages don't __get__ options, we get Towers, or we get Aeonars, or we get a Templar blade to the heart. _ And yet here he was, with not only options, but _several_ options. On the one hand, there was _ship to Tevinter_, which came along with _house in the country, quiet life, true freedom, new beginning. _ On the other hand, there was _Grey Wardens_, which had significantly more baggage, not the least of which was _possible death by secret ritual, _and _guaranteed death by Darkspawn. _ There was also, however, _honor of being a Grey Warden_, and _a way to remain in Ferelden and still be free – at least to a certain extent_, and of course _chance to serve the Hero of Ferelden who has quite possibly done more for you out of the kindness of her Darkspawn-killing little heart in the course of a few hours than anyone else has done for you in your entire __life__. _

When the door finally swung inward, he didn't feel any closer to a decision than he had when it had shut behind her; and yet when he looked up into her expectant face, everything fell into place with startling finality. "Right, so…ritual time," he said, the words coming out of his mouth almost of their own volition.

She cocked that alluring, questioning eyebrow at him again. "Are you certain?"

_Early death, fighting in the Deep Roads, Darkspawn stink on me all the time…Maker's breath, if she keeps doing that ridiculous thing with her eyebrow I won't be able to say no to anything ever again in my pathetic little life. _ "I…yes. Yes, I am." He nodded emphatically to drive the point home. _If__ it's utterly horrible, I can always take off once this Talking Darkspawn business is done, right? Be doing her a huge favor by staying for that much._

She looked…surprised, and he found that that bothered him, which was surprising in itself, because he hadn't expected to make the choice either. "Well then, let's proceed with the Joining. And may the Maker watch over you," she added in a softer voice as he stepped past her through the door.

_Just…excellent_, Anders thought as he walked at her side to attend this Mysterious Ritual That Might Kill Him. _She's praying for me, and the Commander does __not__ look like the praying type. But of course, she's cute and she was nice to you, so why not just throw yourself at her mercy so she can boss you around while you kill monsters side-by-side with drunken dwarves and stuck-up warrior princesses? Worst idea in the history of…__ever__…_


	5. The Joining

**A/N: **Honestly, this was not meant to be a playthrough fic, there are so many of those out there already - but I'm having far too much fun getting into these characters' heads to skip through a lot of this. The game might tell us a great story, but it gives us only the slightest hints of the thoughts and motivations behind what happens. Makes for a really slow start to this story, but I am actually going somewhere with this, I promise!

I am mirroring this story on Dreamwidth for those with accounts there, since FFnet has a tendency to misbehave fairly often. There are also some screen shots there showcasing my F!Cousland and Anders/Nathaniel in their custom-armored glory. Link is in my profile!

A huge thank you to all who have read and commented - I haven't been great about replying, I know - real life is crazy-busy! - but I appreciate every last one.

**ETA: Re-uploaded, significantly cleaned up. That's what I get for not proofing what I submit. **

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Rowan was all too aware of the tension thrumming through the mage's tall frame as he walked beside her across the hall, and she could sympathize; she felt it herself, if for different reasons. This would be a first for her too, in a way: her first Joining, not only as a Grey Warden, but as Warden Commander. Her own Joining, nearly three years ago, had been all but forgotten in the wake of Ostagar, but now, it was suddenly clear in her mind: Daveth, succumbing to the Taint, and Jory, victim of his own fears. As she often did these days, she found herself thinking of Duncan, picturing his steadfast resolve, his unwavering commitment to _duty_. _Maker, let me be worthy of following in his footsteps. _Her greatest fear lay in the very real possibility that at some point, she would be called upon to take a life, as Duncan had taken Jory's, to preserve the secrecy of the order. _This from the woman who just spilled a good deal of those secrets to a strange mage not an hour ago, _hissed a wry, sarcastic voice in the back of her head; she did her best to ignore it, true or not.

Anders fell in line with Mhairi and Oghren as Rowan took her place next to Varel, who was still in conversation with Cera, the Circle mage who had prepared the Joining. As she waited for them to begin, she took a moment to study each of her three Warden recruits.

Standing furthest from her, Mhairi was a bundle of nervous energy, looking about to burst from anticipation and excitement. Though she could not explain exactly _why, _Rowan experienced another flash of uncomfortable intuition: this woman was not a Warden. She was a capable enough warrior, well-trained and disciplined – if a little green – but far too young and idealistic. _Do you have even the smallest idea what we __are__, what we do? _She could not picture Mhairi making the hard decisions with any degree of logic, could not imagine her dealing gracefully with the concept of slaying Tainted civilians, deciding who was to live, and who to die. Her knowledge of the order was likely limited to the flowery, heavily-embellished tales and songs that had emerged in the wake of the Battle of Denerim..._not _an accurate representation of the Grey Wardens, by any means. _You believe you are about to take up a mantle of __honor__; what will you do when you discover that honor often has little place among us? _

With a shake of the head, Rowan tore her gaze away from the young woman, and moved on to contemplate Anders. The mage was watching Cera's final preparations with a combination of grim resolve and almost childlike curiosity. Every few seconds, however, his eyes would flicker away, outwards to doors and shadowed passages, upwards to windows and rafters. Seeking escape routes, of course. Rowan had no trouble picturing Anders as a Grey Warden: he was good at what he did, and a lifetime of rebellion against the Tower would have hardened him to the grim realities of the world. Earning his loyalty, however, would not be easy: the need to _run _was strong in him. She had offered him the choice of joining for that very reason...he was needed, yes, but she could ill-afford to spend her time chasing him down if he bolted. In giving him the opportunity to join of his own free will, she had – hopefully – planted the first seeds of trust in him, offered something that would appeal to that innate drive he seemed to possess, to _fix _things. For all that he was irreverent and willful, there was a grudging sort of kindness about him, an unconscious generosity of spirit that would serve the Wardens well. Whether it would be enough to hold him, in the long run, was anyone's guess, but the fact that he _had _chosen this was a hopeful sign.

Almost unwillingly, her eyes sought Oghren. The gruff dwarf was uncharacteristically sober at the moment, a determined glint in his normally ale-dulled blue eyes. _This _was the Joining she feared the most. Rowan had been asked countless times since the Blight's end, why she did not simply recruit all her companions into the order, and the answer was simple: she could not bring herself to risk it. It was difficult enough to look at strangers like Mhairi and Anders, and to know that within the next several minutes, they could be dead. To look at a companion, a comrade, a _friend_, and think the same...it was unbearable. She had spoken to Oghren directly after leaving Anders, however, and his unwavering resolve - a determination bordering on desperation – to join had worn her down. And in truth, she reflected guiltily, she had never been as close to Oghren as she had been to some of the others...he had joined their ragtag company near the end of the Blight, and his perpetually-inebriated state had made _real _friendship difficult. Had it been Zevran or Leli or even Morrigan who asked this of her, she knew she never would have relented, despite the fact that any of them would be worth 100 men in her service. And _this _was the heart of her guilt: that despite Oghren's reliable presence at her side during the Blight, he did not matter enough for her to protect him from the Grey Wardens.

Varel's low, gravelly voice broke into her reverie; he was holding a familiar silver chalice in his hands and speaking to the three recruits in a formal tone. Her eyes traveled along the short row of recruits, and in her head, she offered up one last prayer to the Maker for their survival, even as she added her voice to the seneschal's, speaking those fateful words:

_Join us, brothers and sisters.  
Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant.  
Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn.  
And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten...and that one day, we shall join you. _

The chalice found its way to Oghren's hands first. He was growling at the seneschal, some comment about the size of his serving. _Maker's __blood__, Oghren, just drink and have it done._ Her heart twisted in her chest as the dwarf raised the cup to his lips and drank deeply, throat working reflexively (_is he drinking the entire __thing__?_). And then a tremor went through him, Varel carefully retrieving the cup from hands that twisted into claws, and the hair on the back of Rowan's neck stood on end as his features contorted, eyes closing and then flashing open, veiled, unseeing. _What is it that you see, when there is no Archdemon to sing for you? _She prayed to the Maker, to Andraste, to the sodding _Ancestors _as she waited for him to fall, but fall he did not...he kept his feet, his whole body tense and swaying but unyielding against the onslaught of the poison. And then his eyes were his own again, he was _Oghren the Grey Warden_, and a shudder took her, the urge to laugh with hysterical relief nearly overpowering as the dwarf, _her _dwarf, opened his mouth and uttered a resounding belch. Varel spared her a put-upon sideways glance, and she shrugged in response, the telltale twitch at the corner of her mouth betraying relief as much as amusement.

As Varel hoisted a new cup (_Maker's breath, sodding dwarf __did_ _drink all of it_), Oghren came to stand at her right elbow, an unspoken gesture of solidarity that said to her, _This is as it should be_, and at the same time, surely said to the mage who awaited his turn, _See? Not so bad._

The mage in question _did _appear to need some encouragement. He was eyeing the chalice that Varel had placed in his hands with a combination of distaste and unease. "_This _is the Joining," he said, forming the words carefully as his eyes darted from Varel, to Rowan, to Oghren, and back again. "Drinking. Darkspawn. _Blood._" Beneath the obvious revulsion in his voice swirled a distinct undercurrent of impending mutiny. Rowan crossed her arms over her chest, unobtrusively bringing her hands closer to the hilts of her weapons, even as something inside her called _mercy _curled up into a tight little ball and screamed in denial. _Please don't make me do this, _she thought fervently. _Please. You are needed here. There is no escaping this, even for you._

Anders met her gaze then, his own expression a careful mask to match her own. "If I wake up two weeks from now on a ship bound for Rivain in nothing but my small-clothes with a tattoo on my forehead...I'm blaming _you._" And he lifted the cup to his lips and drank.

As the tainted brew worked its way down the mage's throat, Rowan had to bite her lower lip to suppress a smile at the mage's rambling. _Grinning at him as he's possibly __dying_ _is perhaps not the best idea, Cousland; just because you didn't have to spill his blood yourself, doesn't mean he's out of the __woods. _Her palms were damp with sweat, and she realized that she was nearly as worried for the near-stranger as she had been for Oghren. _He's so much like __everything_ _was during the Blight...smart-ass, sarcastic, oppositional, but with his heart at least marginally in the right place. I __need_ _that. _

Anders crashed to the ground, and time stood still for a moment. And then Varel said, "He lives, Commander," and relief flooded through her.

All that remained now was Mhairi. The warrior took the cup from Varel with a look of reverence, eyes sparkling. "I have awaited this moment," she breathed. Even before the cup touched her lips, Rowan knew she would not make it, and was glad of it, and hated herself a little for being glad.

And as she had expected, as she had _known _from the moment they had arrived, Mhairi fell. The moment the liquid hit her tongue, she gasped reflexively, blackness bleeding across her eyes as she clawed at her throat in panic. With a terrible choking sound, she collapsed, writhing on the stone floor...and then was still. Varel crouched over her for a moment, then looked up at Rowan and shook his head. "I am sorry, Mhairi," he said quietly.

Rowan joined the seneschal at the fallen warrior's side, closing the girl's eyelids with a gentle hand. "Be at peace, Grey Warden," she murmured.

As she stood and turned away from the prone, lifeless form, there came another pang of that strange regret...not regret that the girl had died, not even regret that she had allowed her to take her Joining despite _knowing,_ somehow, that it would not take. No, what she regretted was that she felt no regret for any of these things. _What have I become?_

_You have become a Grey Warden,_ whispered that endlessly pragmatic voice in the back of her mind, that voice that sometimes echoed Duncan's matter-of-fact tones, sometimes Morrigan's sarcastic drawl, sometimes Zevran's exotic, lilting purr. _Nothing more, nothing less. Everything that you were born to be is lost to you, taken from your hands and ripped from your soul by a traitorous politician and the ravages of the Blight. You will do this because you __must__. You will make the unpopular decision, you will decide the fate of others, you will reject honor in favor of duty...because you are strong enough, because you __must__ be strong enough. Heroism is a fairy tale, and honor is a lie; you will do what must be done, so that others may live in the comforting lie of the moral high ground. _

_This is what you are. _

She shook her head as though the action might clear it, and her eyes caught the slumped form of Anders, still lying unconscious on the cold ground, eyelids fluttering as he wrestled with whatever the Taint visited upon him, and a wave of melancholy washed over her, almost comforting in its refreshing _humanity_. Leaving the cooling corpse of Mhairi behind, she motioned to Varel to help her lift the mage and move him to a comfortable place, and the voice in her head was her father's now, soft and warm and reassuring. _Do what must be done, Pup, but don't lose sight of your conscience, or you will be lost. _

Rowan thought she could live with that.


	6. Redeemer

**A/N**: Updates may be a bit scarce for awhile, both because of the upcoming holiday _and _because I've gotten sucked back into the hopeless time-sink that is "World of Warcraft: Cataclysm."

* * *

Were it not for the constant, low-level hum of _sodding Darkspawn close by_ that never completely went away, Anders reflected, this new assignment might actually be halfway-acceptable.

It had been less than a full day since he had awakened from a nightmare-plagued slumber, the Fade-twisted visages of Tainted creatures giving way abruptly to the carefully-guarded face of the Warden Commander, the pale early-morning light harshly illuminating the shadows and lines of sheer exhaustion that gathered about her eyes and mouth. She gave him little more than a few minutes to fully wake up and clear his head before telling him, in a blandly methodical tone, the full truth that she had so carefully skirted the night before. The conversation was disturbing mostly because it did not disturb him _nearly _so much as it _should _have. And afterwards, of course, she had smoothly gone about transitioning him into this new reality as if she had _not _just informed him that he had thirty years to live (childless and ravenously hungry the whole while), that he would have these absurd nightmares for every one of those thirty years, and that should another Blight arise, he could very well be tasked with throwing his life at a tainted dragon.

"The Talk" completed satisfactorily, he had been swiftly shown his new quarters (a rather opulent suite of rooms in the east wing), given the keys to the Keep's infirmary and still room, and then let loose in the armory, with the promise of a more proper outfitting as soon as they made it into the city. And then he had been, for all intents and purposes, left to his own devices.

He prowled the silent and mostly-empty halls of the Vigil for a time, acquainting himself with the old building as the reality of this new and unexpected fate solidified in his mind. Mostly he wondered if he had somehow lost his head, lost _himself, _somehow. It was unnatural, and entirely uncharacteristic of him, that he had so calmly accepted this strange fate, that he had chosen in it the _first _place. Anders had never been one to dwell on the negative, however, and it _was _quite easy to rationalize it all. Really, what were the chances that he'd have lived to a ripe old age, at the rate he'd been going? Certainly, he could've taken her offer and left the country, but was that _really _what he wanted to do? Hide away in Tevinter and waste away from uselessness? Having _children _certainly hadn't been on his short list of Things I'd Like to Do in My Life, so that wasn't so bad. As far as another Blight, the chances of that were about ten million to one, if history was any indication, so he didn't see the likelihood of dying to kill a Tainted dragon anytime in his future. And what did that leave? A huge appetite and nightmares? Compared to the ruthless treatment of the Templars or – Maker help him – more time in solitary confinement – he could very happily live with bad dreams and hunger pangs.

Still, he felt distinctly uneasy here, not as _free _as he had expected to feel. The Vigil was so much like the Tower in some ways, at least on the surface – the long stone corridors, the formal libraries, the large communal kitchens – and yet it was so very _empty_, hollow, a shadow of its former existence. In a place like this, one could almost believe that ghosts walked the halls. Anders expected that at any moment, he might turn a corner and crash headlong into a clanking suit of Chantry armor, and every time this _didn't _happen, the strange unease grew, until it crawled over his skin like a thousand insects, flowed through his veins with an unsettling combination of heat and prickling ice.

By mid-afternoon, he felt stir-crazy, unaccountably nervous, and at a total loss what to do with all this _time_, and he decided to seek out the Commander. This proved a more daunting task than expected; everywhere he looked, it seemed she had already been and gone. After seeing him settled that morning, she had apparently been off in a whirlwind of ruthless efficiency, everywhere at once. Meetings with the seneschal, the guard captain, the treasurer. Inspections of the Keep's exterior, and long counsels with the dwarves who had come at the behest of Orzammar's king to assist her.

He finally came upon her in the upper yards, deep in conversation with a young sergeant who reminded him a bit of Mhairi (_poor little wretch_). He was unsure what, exactly, to say ('_I'm scared, hold me_' seemed like maybe a bit much), but she stopped mid-sentence when he approached, and asked sharply, "Do you feel anything?"

Caught slightly off-guard by the question, he stammered something to the effect of _Why yes, I feel absurdly hungry and a bit impatient to get to work right now, unless of course you mean can I __physically__ feel anything, in which case I can assure you that all my nerve endings are functioning just fine..._

This was, of course, met with the usual blank imperturbability, but for that slight quirk of the lips that signified a threatening smile. "Let me rephrase that, Anders: do you _sense _anything? There are apparently Darkspawn trapped in the basement...can you sense them?"

"Well...I don't know," he answered, quite truthfully. "How do you sense them? I mean, there's no creepy voice in my mind whispering _Darkspawn alert!_ or anything."

She looked thoughtful for a moment. "As newly-Joined as you are, it wouldn't necessarily be anything you could easily define. Just _anything _odd, any sense that something nearby is _not right._"

His sigh of relief at the explanation was huge and rather dramatic. "_Yes_, actually, I've been sort of twitchy and jumping at shadows all day. Are we going to clean them up, then?"

"Not yet," was her reply. "It'll take them a day or two to open the cellars back up; apparently that dwarf's explosives caused a cave-in."

This settled, he found himself following the Commander around as she went about her business. He didn't really have any _need _to be there, but when she didn't immediately shoo him away, he decided it was highly preferable to wandering around the keep like a lost soul, worrying over that low-level thrum of Darkspawn-induced tension.

And in truth, watching the Commander 'work her wiles' on the unsuspecting inhabitants of the Keep _was _entertaining. She was a delightfully unpredictable study in contrasts: at times, imperious and formal, and at others, friendly and easy-going, depending upon what was asked of her, and _how _it was presented. Always, though, there was that cool distance, that matter-of-factness. _I suppose when you've slain an Archdemon, everything else seems like a walk in the park in comparison, _he reasoned as she calmly dealt with the prickly and somewhat-melodramatic armorsmith.

In all honesty, the mild ego boost he received from being introduced to various individuals as "Anders, one of my senior Wardens" didn't hurt much either, although it seemed a bit overblown. "Senior Warden? _Really_, Commander?" he finally asked after the third time.

"You _are _one of the first. By definition, that gives you seniority, assuming my grasp of the Fereldan language is adequate," she pointed out with just a touch of sarcasm.

Of course, it made perfect sense...but it did little to quell the little burst of silly pride the next time he heard her say it, or the time after that. That flash of warmth _worried _him, really, and again, he had to wonder at how quickly he had fallen in line, how easily he had accepted all this. _It's all this fresh air and the notable lack of Templars in the near vicinity making you behave like this, _the pragmatist in him reasoned. _It'll pass as soon as she starts barking orders and you find yourself covered in Darkspawn gore all the time. _

Oghren joined them in the late afternoon, looking remarkably fresh and alert (at least as much as Oghren _ever _appeared fresh and alert) after having imbibed such a singularly-revolting cocktail the night before. The seemingly never-ending barrage of requests and questions and demands had ebbed only slightly by then, and he and the dwarf were leaning against a stone wall in the upper yards, trading amicable barbs back and forth as the Commander spoke in low tones with an adorable petite blond soldier (_Maker's breath, the scenery in this place is really __quite__ excellent_). The day had proved sufficiently diverting that he had been able to (mostly) tune out that crawly, nervous _there are Darkspawn in the basement _feeling, and his usual optimism was easier in coming with each passing moment.

The look on the Commander's face when she rejoined them only intensified the satisfied feeling – she wore the expression he was already coming to know as her 'business face,' all stony concentration and sharp eyes. "It seems I have a prisoner to interrogate," she said flatly, unconsciously fingering the dagger at her hip. "Ambitious fellow broke in the night before the attack, took quite a few men to take him down."

Oghren grunted (Oghren mostly seemed to communicate via surprisingly-expressive grunts) and shot a glance at Anders. "Five sovereigns says she conscripts him."

That was a bet he wasn't willing to take, particularly against the dwarf, who had had the benefit of several months to get to know the Commander's ways during the Blight. Regardless, a confrontation with a prisoner promised to be interesting, and he found himself looking forward to it as he followed the Commander and the dwarf to the dungeon entrance. _Poor sod won't have the first clue what hit him, _he thought with an inward smirk as he ducked through the door into the dark, cramped prison area.

"Ahh, Commander!" exclaimed the guard on duty as they approached. "I'm glad you're here. This one's been locked up three nights now." He shot a dark look over his shoulder at the prisoner huddled in the cell against the far wall. "Good men _died_ while this one was protected in his cell."

The Commander eyed him intently for a moment, then nodded. "Give me a moment to speak with him," she said evenly. The guard retreated obediently to observe. Anders settled for leaning casually against a wall next to Oghren and crossing his arms over his chest, watching interestedly as the Commander approached the bars.

The prisoner was huddled against the far wall of the cell, naught visible except a head of shaggy black hair and long, muscular legs folded up against his chest. As the Commander approached, he looked up, revealing piercing grey eyes, and a face that could maybe be called handsome, but for the _extremely_ _unfortunate nose_. His expression hardened immediately at the sight of her, and he unfolded his long frame and approached the bars of the cell with a sneer. "Well," he drawled, "if it isn't the great hero...conqueror of the Blight and vanquisher of all evil. Aren't you supposed to be ten feet tall, with lightning bolts shooting out of your eyes?"

The Commander studied him openly with raised eyebrows and an expression of calm speculation. "The Darkspawn probably think so," she returned blithely. _Oh, this is going to be __such__ a good one_, Anders thought, resisting the urge to rub his palms together in anticipation.

The prisoner, of course, appeared unmoved by this rather saucy opener; he conducted a lengthy and very obvious appraisal of her armor-clad form, disdain evident on his weathered face. "Somehow," he said, voice laced with sarcasm, "I just thought that my father's _murderer _would be more...impressive."

Anders' first inclination was to roll his eyes. The woman had spent two years putting down a civil war and ending a sodding _Blight_; this surly chap's dear dad was probably one of many whose lives she had ended in the process. If every bitter orphaned son showed up on her doorstep, they were going to need a _much _bigger guard contingent.

Then, he glanced at the Commander and his eyes widened in surprise. All the breath seemed to have gone out of her, all the fight: she was stone, utterly unmoving, her face not guarded now, just _blank_, in a vaguely unsettling way. _What am I missing here? _The woman had, in a very short period of time, become a bit like a mythic hero figure in his overworked brain, and seeing her so...shut _off_...was more than a little disturbing. Anders only barely restrained the urge to shoot a rejuvenation spell at her, a bolt of lightning to the ass, _anything _to get her to show some _life._

Taking advantage of having caught the Commander off-guard, the prisoner raised his chin defiantly, almost proudly. "I am Nathaniel Howe," he said, and Anders watched in a kind of dazed fascination as she rocked back on her heels, as if dodging a blow. "My family owned these lands until _you _showed up. Do you even remember my father?"

Something seemed to _click _in her; something surged to the surface that wasn't _cool, _it was frozen steel, hard and bitter. "I remember him well," she replied, and her voice was adamant and ice, each syllable carefully articulated. "Do you really think I would forget the man who slaughtered my entire family?"

Now it was the prisoner's turn to lose himself; a flush crept up his face, and his grip on the cell bars went white-knuckled. "Your family was going to sell us out to the Orlesians!"

She laughed at this, actually _laughed_, but it was a cold, humorless sound that sent a little shiver up Anders' spine. "Let me guess," she drawled. "Your _father _told you this."

"How could he?" the prisoner – _Nathaniel_ – shot back bitterly. "I never got the chance to see him. A Grey Warden stole into his estate and murdered him in his own home."

Beside him, Oghren erupted in fury. "His 'estate,' eh? You little nug-wipe, she found him in the middle of his very own tort-"

"Oghren!" the Commander said sharply, her eyes never leaving the prisoner's face.

The dwarf subsided only reluctantly, muttering under his breath about _torture _and _bloody vicious nug-humpers_. Anders could only stare, caught in a whirlwind of his own thoughts. He had been (understandably, he thought) fairly preoccupied during the Blight, what with trying to stay _alive _and all, avoiding Templars and Darkspawn alike, but he hadn't realized just how unaware he had been, of all that had occurred. The Couslands had been _slaughtered?_ His head was swirling with questions, the foremost being _What kind of bloody, bitter little family feud did I just walk into here? _(Coming in at a close second, of course, was _What in the Maker's name is a __nug-humper__?_).

Really though, most of his attention – and his confusion – was for the Commander herself. It was only now, seeing this clear Achilles' heel, this crack in her armor, that he recognized just how..._unnatural _she was. All day, he had been simultaneously amused, charmed, and rather awed by the way she adjusted herself, chameleon-like, to each individual she interacted with. It hadn't even occurred to him to wonder just which face was the _real _one...and now, he considered the very real possibility that _none _of them had been, that it was all some kind of elaborate front. For whose benefit, he wondered?

The conversation with Nathaniel had continued while he considered all this, the Seneschal summoned and the guard called back, and now, he forced his attention back to the proceedings just in time to hear the Commander's voice, ringing with its usual guarded clarity, addressing Varel. "I wish to invoke the Right of Conscription."

Nathaniel looked as though he'd been struck. "You _what?_" he exclaimed.

Varel looked similarly taken-aback. "I'm sorry, Commander," he said, staring at her as though she'd just grown a second head. "...the Right of Conscription? On the _prisoner_?"

The prisoner in question was gesturing wildly, his face even darker now. "_No_, absolutely _not! _Hang me, first?"

The Commander turned to eye him speculatively, with that familiar arch of one brow. "This doesn't seem better than dying?"

Nathaniel smirked. "Hard to say. You like having Grey Wardens who want you dead?"

Her answering smile contained the slightest hint of honest, wry amusement. "Some of my best friends have wanted me dead," she drawled, and beside Anders, the dwarf grunted again.

"You really want a _Howe _as a Grey Warden?" Nathaniel shook his head in consternation. "You are a very strange woman." _Ser Howe, you have __no__ idea..._

"An...interesting decision, Commander," Varel said, clearly trying very hard to sound diplomatic. When the Commander offered no further comment, he opened the cell door and nodded for Nathaniel to follow him. "Come with me, Ser; we'll see if you survive the Joining."

The Commander did not spare her _Senior Wardens _so much as a glance as she followed the Seneschal and his unwilling recruit through a side entrance into the Vigil, shutting the door firmly behind her. "What was _that _about?" Anders couldn't help but ask.

"Wouldn't be the first time she conscripted a man out from under a death sentence," Oghren muttered, eyeing Anders pointedly. "Although considering where _that _little nug-humpercame from, I gotta wonder about this one." He scratched his beard distractedly. "Crazy redhead said once she had a...what'd she call it...a _redeemer complex_, or something, wanted to _fix _everybody else. Stone knows, she went outta her way to solve everybody's problems for 'em during the Blight. I dunno, though..."

Anders resisted the temptation to ask who the crazy redhead was. _Probably one of the ale-infested little voices in his head. _"Did his father really...kill her family?"

The dwarf eyed him surprisingly levelly for a moment. "Guess you'll find out, if and when she decides to tell ya. Going to get some grub – and a _drink_," he announced, turning and heading back out towards the yards.

Anders stood in the silent, empty dungeon for a long time, staring at the closed door leading into the Keep, back to wondering if he had just traded one madhouse for another. _Who __are__ you, Warden Commander?_


	7. Mercy

**A/N:** _No, I didn't die/fall off the face of the earth/abandon this. This chapter is extremely character-development-heavy/internal monologue-based, and was really tough to write, so feedback/concrit is welcome.__  
_

_Without further ado..._

* * *

"You want me to wear _what?"_

Rowan rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the railing at the edge of the armorsmith's pavilion. "It's _armor_, Anders, not a minstrel suit."

Beside her, Oghren snorted. "You'd think Sparkle-fingers here would be grateful to get out of that sodding _skirt_."

Heaving an exasperated sigh, she nodded towards the far corner of the pavilion, where Wade was puttering over the forge. "We have one of the finest smiths in Ferelden here; I'm sure he can manage something to suit your tastes."

The dwarf elbowed her rather roughly in the ribs. "An _armored skirt_, aye?" he leered.

"Oh, Maker's _breath_." She turned to Anders, whose mouth was already open in the process of shaping a retort. "You saw how it was in the basements. It's going to be like that all the time...far worse, really. _Trust me_, I've seen firsthand how adequate mage robes can be under those circumstances. It's _not enough._" A shiver coursed through her, images flashing before her eyes unbidden…Deep Roads, corruption, darkness_. _ Wynne, borne to the ground beneath the weight of a small _army _of genlocks. Frantic, panicked struggle to staunch the flow of lifeblood, to sustain the old healer until she could regain consciousness and begin mending her own wounds.

"Look," Anders said, just a slight hint of _serious _to his tone now (thankfully), "I see your point. But magical energy is linked to _physical _energy in a lot of ways. Armor is heavy, and _heavy _is draining. That means less healing for you before I'm rolling around on the floor in a lyrium haze."

"I'm not talking about plate," Rowan explained as patiently as she could manage, "just something with at least a _chance _of turning a blade. And there are enchantments that can make armor easier to bear."

The mage's eyes slid slowly from her head to her metal-clad feet. "Ahhh, hadn't thought of that. I've been wondering how someone roughly the size of a _gnome _manages to carry around that tin suit without falling over every two minutes."

It took a determined effort to keep the answering smirk off her lips. "Anders," she said sharply. "Smithy. _Now._"

"Just because you're the Commander doesn't mean you get to…" He stopped in mid-sentence and sighed. "_Never mind._" Head down, the mage moved off towards Wade, every line of his body reading as 'pout.' Oghren appeared to consider his options for a few moments, and then set off after the mage, most likely seeing greater opportunity for hilarity in the prospect of an Anders – Wade collaboration.

With a sigh of mingled amusement and exhaustion, Rowan wandered away from the smithy, breathing deeply and trying – unsuccessfully, for the most part - to clear her head. After the chaotic initial battle at the Vigil, she had hoped that things would fall into a routine of sorts, that the strains of assuming command would balance out with the rewards of progress. Now, after six days of unexpected conscriptions, angry nobles, supply issues, and Darkspawn extermination in the basement, she was beginning to understand that real progress would be long in coming. The weight of responsibility – a responsibility she had _craved_, for Andraste's sake – hung about her neck like a noose sometimes, making it difficult to breathe, _certainly _difficult to make much effort at camaraderie with her Wardens. Anders' humor invoked her temper, Oghren's penchant for drink earned her disapproval, and Nathaniel...

_Ahhh, Nathaniel._ The mere thought of the surly archer was more than enough to spark a riot in her already-burdened mind.

Rowan had few memories of Nathaniel Howe; they had been mere children, no more than six or seven years of age, when last she'd seen him. She recalled him – vaguely – as a serious, studious boy, quietly respectful and eager to please his father. The man he had become, the man she had faced so unexpectedly through the bars of the Vigil prison, bore little resemblance to that quiet child. Still serious, perhaps – _grim_, now – but so coldly aloof, so much bitterness and resentment swirling beneath the veneer of calm, so much...

..._like his father..._

She knew no such thing, of course, had no basis to make that comparison, beyond the uncanny physical resemblance. The memory of that first moment, however, when she realized exactly who he was, still had the power to send a surge of dark fury surging through her, and the lack of a logical basis for that immense anger made it all the more overwhelming.

Looking back, she _loathed _herself for losing her cool, for that outburst of spite in the presence of her Wardens – in the presence of a Howe, even moreso. But in the heat of the moment, in that stunning second of recognition... how cold her blood had run! To see the face of Rendon Howe, only young and strong and _dangerous_...

Odd, that it had been an unexpected, but overwhelming, urge to _protect _the young Howe that had snapped her back to rights, driven her to cut off Oghren before he revealed the true extent of Rendon's depravity in such a heated moment. Nathaniel had spent most of his adult life in the Free Marches... and he had been fed lies regarding the Orlesians... was he not an innocent in the entire mess? Blood of the man who had slaughtered her family in the name of power and greed, but was he not a victim himself? It was a difficult thing to reconcile, when the innocent wore the face of the guilty.

In the end, of course, she had done what any self-respecting and half-mad Warden Commander would do (_thank you Duncan, for your continued inspiring presence in my mind_): she had conscripted him. He possessed impressive skill with a bow, he was a natural scout (_which I wouldn't need so badly if Zevran would for the love of the Maker __come home_) – and of course, he showed little fear of death or consequence, a highly desirable trait in a Warden these days.

It was a mercy, in any case, she had reasoned; with his family's name destroyed by his father's deeds, all their lands and possessions taken from them, what better way to restore honor to the Howes?

Except that even now, that reasoning did not have the ring of honesty. Why _had _she conscripted him, really? She could say _mercy_, she could say _fairness_...but had she been acting in fairness, or mercy, would she not have simply released him? If she conscripted every down-on-his-luck prisoner who had some martial skill, all the prisons in Ferelden would lie empty. Should she not have, at the very least, offered him a choice? And at any rate, what matter was it of hers whether the Howe name was redeemed in the first place?

This train of thought brought to mind an overheard snippet of conversation between Leli and Wynne, towards the end of the Blight. _She always seems to want to __fix__ everyone, _the bard had said, _as though she doesn't feel them capable of doing it for themselves. _Wynne, of course, in that syrupy, cloyingly sweet tone of hers, had replied, _Perhaps she wants to fix them because she doesn't feel capable of fixing herself._ Even today, the words burned in her gut.

Worst of all, had been the incident in the Vigil basements. The discovery that the woman Adria might live somewhere within the Darkspawn-infested warrens had galvanized the archer, flooded him with a kind of desperate hope. When they had discovered her, tainted beyond saving, his grief had been palpable... and Rowan had tasted the muted flavor of apathy on her tongue as she ordered him to assist in slaying the woman. And when, afterwards, he had actually begun to treat her not with anger or blame, but with a new _respect_... it was unbearable.

_It is unbearable because a part of you enjoyed watching him kill that woman_, said that ever-present and increasingly-bitter voice in her head, the one that used to be the Voice of Reason but lately had devolved into the Voice of Recrimination. _You don't want him to respect you, because then you won't have any excuse to look at him and see his father's face, and enjoy suffering and pain on that familiar countenance. It is unbearable because you are not convinced that you could have acted with the same dignity and honor as the Howe. _

She shook her head, hard, as though the physical motion would somehow wrench loose that insidious tone. Looking around, she realized that she had wandered far from Wardens and workmen alike: the shouts of the soldiers fortifying damaged walls had faded to a distant patter, vague and inarticulate. Truly alone for perhaps the first time in days, she gave in to the tug of misery and sank down to the ground against an old well, resting her head against the cool stone and closing her eyes. _If I don't get a handle on this, I'm going to go mad._

It had been so very _easy_, during the Blight. The night that her family had died, she had died with them, she thought; she existed for vengeance alone, the need to spill Rendon Howe's blood a cold comfort and a driving force that fueled every swing of her sword, every step she took towards her goal. By the time she had found that vengeance, she had been so enmeshed in the duty of a Warden – _and in Alistair_ – that she hadn't really had the time to consider what she had become.

Now, she existed within a strange duality: the hardened Grey Warden who had nearly single-handedly ended a Blight, and the young woman who had learned diplomacy and law and fairness at her father's side. She lived for the cold release of battle, but she yearned to honor her family by living up to their expectations. At the beginning, she had convinced herself that the two could coexist, but the more time passed, the more the darkness in her swelled, and the harder it became to reconcile the two.

Perhaps, she mused, it had much to do with the sense of total isolation she felt here. During the Blight, at least, her darker moments had been tempered with laughter and song, moments of grace that soothed the savagery in her. Listening to Sten talk of his homeland, his customs, in that abrupt but oddly soothing voice. Dancing with Zev, twirling across the floor of a nearly-deserted inn somewhere outside Redcliffe. Hunting with Leliana, no sound but for their footsteps on the forest floor, and then the twang of a bow-string and the whistle of her blades. The nights when she took a late watch and then crawled into Alistair's arms...

_No._ Again, she found herself shaking her head in an effort to clear it. Those memories were tainted, ruined for her now.

With an effort, she focused her thoughts on her Wardens. Oghren had always had a bit of darkness to him, and had always drowned himself in ale to push that darkness back. It seemed that his favorite remedy no longer worked so well. These days, he was mostly _always _drunk (though, somehow, it tended to matter little in the heat of battle – he still fought like a demon), and either strangely sad, or nearly unconscious. She could find no solace in familiarity, there, because the dwarf was so lost in his own personal hell that there was little to recognize now.

And Anders. Releasing him when she had first met him had been, admittedly, a completely impulsive decision, and not a particularly _smart _one, from a tactical perspective. The mage had offered to help from the beginning – perhaps, had she taken him along from the start, he might have even been able to save Rowland. While his timely return had spoken volumes of his character, it did little to quell the feeling of disquiet she felt over such a rash inconsistency in her own behavior. She had given no thought to releasing Nathaniel Howe, and yet she had been more than happy to set the mage free.

What galled her more, was that she had wanted the mage at her side as a _comrade_... no matter what she had told herself at the time, he reminded her of Alistair in more ways than one – Alistair as he had been, before anger and resentment had changed him. She might have _had _him thus, had it not been for that alarming slip in control when they had come upon Nathaniel in the gaol. Difficult as it was for her, in her pride, to admit, she had enjoyed the awe with which he regarded her, _hero worship_, almost. That oddly adoring behavior had ceased abruptly, the day that Nathaniel had joined the Grey Wardens. The mage hadn't lost a bit of his snarky irreverence, but when she caught his eyes upon her now, they were more calculating and curious than awed.

The sun was dipping low on the horizon, and Rowan did her best to shut off her thoughts as she stood and headed back towards the Vigil. They would be heading into the city in a matter of days, _finally_, and there was much to do in preparation.

* * *

_**(Amaranthine, Three Days Later)**_

Rowan was already exhausted, and not particularly at her most vigilant, when she turned the corner into a narrow alley to find a weaselly little man in mage's robes waiting for her. She stopped so abruptly that Oghren ran into her back, and she heard the faint patter of liquid sloshing from his hip flask onto the cobbles, followed swiftly by a muttered curse.

_Maleficar_. She reached for her weapons, opening her mouth to bark a command, to warn Nathaniel and Anders to readiness – then abruptly found herself immobile, muscles spasming rhythmically as her armor-clad and weary body was clamped within a vise of pure magic. Agony washed over her, all-consuming, and she fought to keep her eyes open, to watch as the first of Nathaniel's arrows flew, as Oghren slid past her with surprising grace, axe in the air...

...And then Anders was beside her, hands outstretched in a _pushing _gesture, and the enemy mage dropped like a stone. A moment later, the magical prison that surrounded her faded, and she stumbled drunkenly a few steps before the healer caught her, guiding her to a wall, which she sank into with a grateful sigh as healing magic washed over her. "Anders..."

The mage was tight-lipped and mildly disapproving as he returned her curious stare. "Yes, Commander?"

"Do the Templars know...about that spell?"

"That...the one I just...? Probably." The healer shrugged. "It's not used often; it's incredibly draining, so not many can use it without depleting all their inner reserves." There was no missing the flash of pride in his expression, the faint curve of his lips. "At any rate, its _only _use is against another mage, so it's not one we use much. Not much need to turn on our own kind, usually."

The faint recrimination in the statement was obvious, but Rowan chose to ignore it. Surely he realized by now that the coven of blood mages they had been hunting all day was not simply a group of misunderstood, good-intentioned hedge witches? "If I were a Templar," she said slowly, "a particularly _ruthless _Templar – like our friend Ser Rylock, perhaps – I might be very tempted to _use _mages to capture and kill other mages, if it's that easy. Keep that in mind. You might be out of their grasp, but if they see that _you _can do it..."

His eyes hardened. "Point taken," he said quietly.

With a weary sigh, Rowan pushed herself away from the wall, and gestured to Nathaniel and Oghren. "Let's get back to the inn."

The late afternoon sun beat down with an unrelenting fury on the four Grey Wardens as they made their way back to the Crown & Lion, liberally blood-spattered and utterly exhausted. The moment they had arrived in in the city of Amaranthine, they had been thrust into conflict after conflict. First, there had been the problem of the smugglers. A frenzied chase through the market district had eventually led them to a warren of tunnels beneath the city, where they had fought off wave after wave of angry bandits, desperate to protect their unlawful livelihood.

And then, of course, there were the blood mages. The Templar who had given Rowan the broadsheets had not seemed particularly zealous or unreasonable, but from the moment the paper touched her fingers, Anders had been fuming silently, regarding her with obvious disapproval. He had followed orders, and had fought unquestioning when the first of the mages turned on them with unreasoning rage. But even after the clear evidence of blood magic had been discovered on each mage they encountered, even after each of the mages themselves fought with a vicious fury to evade capture – leaving them little choice but to kill or be killed, really – he had maintained an air of barely-suppressed tension, an uncharacteristic coldness, stilling his tongue and tightening his features until all she could think of was the King.

Inside the inn, they trudged upstairs silently to wash up and change. The cool air that sank through her shirt as she peeled away the filthy armor was a soothing balm to Rowan's overheated skin, and she fought the overpowering urge to just collapse onto the bed and let oblivion take her for awhile.

A short time later, they were gathered in a quiet corner of the inn, far away from prying ears, hunching over tankards and speaking in low tones. "We go to the Blackmarsh first, right?" Nathaniel was saying. "See if we can find this Kristoff?"

Rowan shook her head. "We go to the Knotwood Hills first."

Nathaniel merely quirked an eyebrow at her, but Anders hissed. "You want to leave a fellow Warden in the lurch so we can go chase down a hunter's tale?"

Rowan looked at him sharply. "If there is any shred of truth to their story, the Darkspawn may be breeding there. They reproduce in _massive_ numbers, Anders."

Beside her, Oghren grunted his assent; a brief glance in his direction revealed a distinctly grey pallor as he remembered all they had seen in the Dead Trenches. "If we don't put a stop to that, lads, we'll be overwhelmed," he growled. "And then it won't make no difference whether Kristoff lives, or the trade caravans can get through...none of it."

"Look at it this way," Rowan sighed, noting Anders' unhappy expression. "If it were _you_ out there, Anders... would you rather the rest of us came after you, even if it meant that the entire Arling could be overrun by Darkspawn because they were allowed to breed unchecked?"

"I... no, of course not." The healer stared into the middle of the scarred tabletop, uncharacteristically bleak.

Rowan resisted the urge to reassure him; after all, this _was _the Grey Wardens, where there was no right and wrong, only bad versus worse. "Then if there are no further objections," she said firmly, "we will leave first thing in the morning. The Vigil is on the way, but unless there's a pressing need for supplies, I think we should travel straight through."

The Wardens all nodded solemnly and got up to leave. Impulsively, Rowan reached out and snagged Anders' sleeve as he made to follow. "Wait," she murmured. The mage subsided back into his seat, cocking an eyebrow inquisitively at her.

She took a deep breath, unsure what, exactly, she wanted to say. There was little she could do to reassure him over the often-unpleasant choices the Wardens had to make; it was the nature of the order. However, the blood mages... it _bothered_ her more than she cared to consider, how coldly disapproving he had been all day. Did he honestly think she would have needlessly slaughtered innocent mages at a Templar's request? "I have a responsibility to protect this Arling from more than just Darkspawn," she said steadily. "I had to look into the charges against the maleficar, but I wouldn't have simply taken the Templar at her word. They attacked us first, Anders. You understand that, right?"

The tension in him finally gave way, leaving misery in its wake. "Of _course _I understand that," he said forcefully. "It's only... I don't know how much you know about blood magic, but some of them... _most _of them... were probably ensorcelled by the leader. Lured into practicing in the first place, and then enslaved into doing his bidding. They were his victims as much as anyone else, and now their blood is on our hands – on _my _hands."

"You can't save everyone, all the time," she said softly. "I learned that the hard way. At least we caught the leader – he won't be enslaving anyone else. There's that, at least, right?"

"I doubt that's much comfort to the ones we slaughtered this afternoon," he replied coldly, and then stood with a sigh. "Look, I'm sorry, I'm... I'm just going to go for a walk."

"Be careful, Anders," Rowan murmured, but he was already gone.


	8. Freedom

**A/N: **So...those of you who have not been hiding under a rock avoiding spoilers might have guessed that recent Bioware announcements have thrown a huge wrench into my little tale.

Inspired by the darker angle on Anders' character in Dragon Age II, I have decided to make this an AU-prelude, of sorts, to the events of the sequel. The upcoming events in this story were already AU for Origins and Awakening, and will most likely be _incredibly _AU for DAII, but it will allow me a spring-board, both to continue Anders' story with a bit of my own custom background, and also provide my take on what might have driven him to make the choice that leads to his DAII predicament.

There will be six more chapters to A Different Prison. All chapters are fully outlined, and many are already at least partially-written, so I'm aiming to finish this tale off _before_ March 8, when Dragon Age II releases.

Reviews and concrit are welcome and appreciated.

* * *

Anders emerged from the Crown & Lion into the darkened street and leaned back against the closed door, breathing deeply. After the cloying atmosphere of the tavern, heavy with smoke, old ale, and the heady scent of a legion of unwashed humanity, the marginally fresher air of the outdoors was a blessed relief, cooling his skin and driving the aura of _filth _from his lungs.

It was becoming harder and harder to maintain his good humor in the face of all this..._tragedy_. He _knew _that there was nothing he could reasonably have done to protect those poor fool mages – assuming they were even being controlled as he suspected; he knew of no healing magic that could cleanse away mind domination. But those blank, idiot _faces_, twisted with a rage not their own... He sucked in another lungful of cleansing, woodsmoke-tinged air, and pushed away from the wall, wandering aimlessly off into the lamp-lit city as he struggled to put it all into some kind of perspective.

_It's not the kind of freedom you've probably been imagining for yourself._ Though he still recalled that entire conversation with the Commander with startling clarity, it was this single statement that echoed in his mind now. It had been so easy to accept it all, that night mere weeks ago when he'd had no idea what he was really getting into. The compulsion to _heal_, and the compulsion to _run_, had always warred for dominance in him – and the need to heal had always won, if only barely. Creation magic was his affinity, and sometimes that magic had a will of its own, actively seeking a use, an outlet. It was that side of him that compelled him to do things like rescue banns from bandit attacks, even though the Templars were close on his heels – or, for that matter, run back into Darkspawn-infested fortresses to aid Warden Commanders. The Healer in him had _thrilled _at the prospect of joining the Grey Wardens. He could have _some _measure of freedom – from the Chantry, at least – and put that driving need to _fix _things to such great use. There had been so much potential in the 'freedom' the Commander offered him: escape the tyranny of the Circle, and at the side of the Hero of Ferelden, perhaps prove that mages weren't just abominations waiting to happen.

The reality, of course, was proving to be far _darker _than he could ever have anticipated. For every new obstacle they faced, there was always a choice – but _none _of the choices ever seemed like the right one, and every way they turned promised failure of some sort. They had routed the Darkspawn from the Vigil basements, and cutting down masses of the stinking creatures _had _been satisfying... but that foray had culminated in the death of an innocent woman, victim to senseless corruption (_and we have to deal the killing blow? Put them down like lame horses when they take the corruption?)_ Then they'd come to the city, and once again there was the satisfaction of dealing with the smugglers, men who'd been preying on the weak and destitute. _That _little victory had been tempered by the handling of the blood mages' coven.

And now, to crown it all so beautifully: here they were, preparing to knowingly leave a fellow Warden, a _comrade, _in danger, in favor of eliminating a nest of Darkspawn. _Is this how it is, all the time? Didn't she say it was simple? Because I can't see any of this as simple. We take a step back for every step forward. _

Up ahead, a diminutive figure detached itself from the overhanging trees and moved directly into his path. Tensing, he reached for his staff... and then faltered as a familiar face resolved from the gloom. "_Namaya_? You're still _here_?"

The elven woman grunted. "_I _keep my promises." Her sharply resentful, too-perceptive eyes never left his face as she drew a small, folded piece of paper from a hip pocket and handed it to him. "Here. You were right – the cache is right here in Amaranthine."

_The cache dear Maker I nearly forgot about the sodding cache and it's bloody-fucking-here... _His mind whirled as he carefully unfolded the precious, weathered note and stared at the address scrawled there.

"It's a warehouse, near the marketplace," Namaya said, rousing him from his reverie. "I couldn't tell if there are guards posted or not."

He looked up absently and noted the hard set of her jaw, the thin tight line of her lips. "Thank you, Namaya, I..."

She waved a hand dismissively, her eyes narrowing. "This was the last one, Anders. We're square now." And she was gone, just as silently as she had appeared.

He stared at the space she had just vacated, very definitely _not _feeling guilty. _Why would I feel guilty? It's not like I was __using__ her. She __owed__ me, she said so herself. Those men who attacked her, the night we met, the men I rescued her from – __they__ were using her, or trying to. It's __not the same thing__. _

Shaking it off as best he could, Anders refocused his attention on the precious scrap of paper in his hand and turned resolutely towards the marketplace.

* * *

Nathaniel surprised him about a half a block from the Crown & Lion. He was walking along, quite unaware of his surroundings (or _anything _really, except the paper in his hand and what it meant), when suddenly, the archer was just..._there_, falling easily into step beside him, smiling faintly at the way he jumped. "Quite a bit of walking you're doing, considering we have a day-long march ahead of us tomorrow," the man commented.

"Yes, well...needed some air." Anders sincerely hoped his fellow Warden wasn't trying to draw him into some pseudo-philosophical _garbage _conversation about necessity and duty and _can't you see that we must kill blood mages, Anders?_ and _blah, blah, blah_. Because that all suddenly seemed so _very _unimportant in the face of what he was about to do. More importantly, in the face of what he was about to do, it was high past time for the suddenly ever-so-friendly archer to _go away_.

Far from soul-searching or consoling, Nathaniel's question caught him off-guard. "How does it feel, anyway? Being able to walk freely along the streets like this, openly bearing a staff."

This gave him a moment's pause. He had, in fact, been walking about in the dark as though he sodding _owned _the place, and he'd been so dejected and so _frustrated _that he'd never even stopped to consider it. "I... hadn't really given it much thought," he admitted haltingly. "I suppose it feels... well, right. _Normal._"

"I can't even imagine, really," Nathaniel said quietly. "What it must be like."

The image that immediately formed in Anders' head was that of the guard captain's face that very afternoon, upon recognizing the archer: wariness, distrust, _fear_, almost. He _still _hadn't found exactly what it was that the man's father had _done_, during the War, but clearly the Commander wasn't the only one who had _issues _with the Howes. "You, of all people, could imagine better than most, I'd wager," he replied.

Nathaniel grunted, and gave him a faint, hard smile. "Perhaps you're right." He stopped dead in the middle of the road, gesturing vaguely back towards the inn, looking suddenly _far _less chatty. "I think I'm heading in for the night – are you coming?"

Anders hesitated momentarily. _Do you really think you can do this alone?_ This was, to his mind, not nearly as important as, _Can you trust him with something this big?_ "No," he sighed at last. "I'll be along in a bit; you go ahead."

Nathaniel eyed him appraisingly for a moment, and then nodded and began walking back the way they'd come. Anders stood and watched until the other man disappeared around a corner, and then continued on his way.

A short time later, he was staring up at the facade of a dilapidated, ancient warehouse not half a block from where the merchants hawked their wares from tables and carts. _It's in there. It's inside, just meters away...my __leash__. _His phylactery, that innocuous little vial of blood, the tool used by the Chantry to track rogue mages – within reach, _finally._ He'd never truly expected to find it here, never really believed that he could be _that lucky_... but if Namaya's information was correct – well, here it was. Destroy that little vial, and there would be nothing they could do to find him, _ever_.

Now that the building was actually right here in front of him, of course, it wasn't quite so easy to trust his own judgment in coming here alone. _This is too big to leave unguarded. And Chantry guards are nearly __always__ Templars. _

_You should go back,_ he told himself. Reasonable, logical mind, damn it anyway. _Ask the Commander to come along. Ask them all to come along. If she meant it, when she said she'd put you on a ship for the Imperium, then this should be nothing to her._

No_._ That way lie questions and personal opinions and too many diverging paths and possibilities for which he'd have to account. He'd been far too quick to peg Rowan Cousland as some Maker-sent, righteous ally, some all-powerful Ticket Out that would make the world magically better. The reality of the Warden Commander was significantly more complicated than he'd been able to discern in those first confusing days. At any rate, he'd had a chance to _truly _prove his worth now; as a woman so obviously driven by her _duty_, surely she'd be far less likely to grant him any favors that gave him a better shot of escaping _all _of it.

_And isn't that exactly what you're thinking about now, anyway? Escaping again?_

Though he tried to deny it to himself, that was exactly what he was thinking about.

_This isn't what I wanted._ It had been so easy to glorify it, when it had been about thrashing Darkspawn in massive numbers, when he'd _believed _her when she told him it was _simple_. It had been a chance to be separate from the Chantry and the Circle and exist amongst the members of an order who lived to protect and aid those in need, to feel bound by a common purpose, amongst those who actually _did something_, not just sat in a stuffy tower and submitted to Chantry governance like slaves, wasting away from disuse.

The only thing that made the thought of running difficult, the _only _reason he hesitated to commit to another escape in his mind, was that he didn't want to be _defined _by running. He'd spent his entire life running; was that any more noble or worthwhile than wasting away in the Tower? He was just as useless on the run as he was sitting in a cell in solitary confinement. _You were given a choice of what to do with your life for the __first time__, and you're questioning that choice now... so you're just going to run __again__? What is the point of having options if they all lead to the same end?_

He shook off the uncertainty briskly. _That doesn't matter right now. Grey Wardens or no, that phylactery needs to be destroyed. No matter what you choose, you'll never truly be free as long as you know that leash is still attached to you._ He took a deep breath and strode forward purposefully, slipping into the dimness of the warehouse and closing the door quietly behind him.

Once inside, he stood utterly still against the door, waiting for his eyes to adjust, and just _listening _for any hint that he might not be alone. Too late, he felt the spark, the pulse of _life _there in front of him. The room erupted in an amber glow as torches flared, and he found himself staring straight into the eyes of a very, _very _satisfied Templar.

"Rylock," Anders drawled. "Fancy meeting _you _here."

And then the pure white light of a smite enveloped him, armored fists descended, and bright gradually, blessedly, faded to nothingness.

* * *

The gentle embrace of the Fade gave way to a reality of agony and fear. He was lying face down on the rough floor of the warehouse, hands tied behind his back, feet lashed together firmly. His eyes were gummed shut, his mouth tasted of ash and old blood... and everywhere, there was pain. Lashes, punches, kicks, all had left their mark, and all made their enduring presence known with stabs and throbs of incredible hurt. In the next room, he could hear the faint sound of voices – they hadn't left him for dead, of course they hadn't. That would be too _easy._

Unsure if he was being watched, he kept his eyes closed, feigning unconsciousness as he carefully catalogued his position. He didn't dare test his magical ability, not right next door to a room full of rabid Templars, but it was probably safe to assume that he was drained five times over. Carefully flexing his wrists, he quickly ascertained that his hands were extremely well-bound, and his feet had gone numb, so there was likely no give there.

In hindsight, that ship to Tevinter had been a really, _really _fantastic opportunity.

In an attempt to ease the pressure on his mostly-numb arms, he shifted his weight, and there was no holding back the cry that escaped him as the battered skin of his torso rolled sickeningly between the hard floor and the bones of his rib cage and hips. He bit down hard on his lower lip, but it was too late; the conversation in the far room had cut off abruptly. A moment later, he heard the door swing open behind him, followed by the distinctive sound of armored bodies moving towards him. Bracing himself, he awaited what he had, in lighter moments, dubbed the 'Templar handshake.'

They were nothing, if not predictable: the wickedly-pointed, metal-tipped toe of a boot drove into his hipbone, rocking him sideways and eliciting another incoherent sound of pain. Cruel laughter filtered around him as he gritted his teeth and waited for the sharp agony to subside to something more manageable.

Gauntleted fingers wrapped around his arms, and he suddenly found himself upright, the cords that bound his feet gone. Disoriented and reeling with vertigo, he struggled to blink away the haze occluding his vision and focus on the sneering face poised inches from his own. "Just who I always hope to see when I wake after a cozy nap," he mumbled through cracked lips.

Ser Rylock, of course, was particularly fluent in the non-verbal language of the Templars: her response was a metal-clad fist to his jaw, sending him reeling, remaining only on his feet by virtue of the faceless Templars pinioning his arms. "You will speak when you're given permission, Anders," Rylock said.

_Okay then._ It seemed rather a moot point at this stage, what with his jaw about to _come off_, and agony in every inch of him, and no way to escape... _You did it this time, mate. You finally fell into a trap that even the infamous Escape Artist can't get out of._

Before him, Rylock began to pace, tension thrumming through her wiry little frame. "For over ten years, apostate, you have flaunted your insubordination and your _evil_. No more. This time, you've taken the life of honorable men, Templars in service to the Maker. This time, you will answer for your crimes."

There was no missing the way her voice cracked on the words _honorable men, Templars in service to the Maker._ That tiny slip more or less confirmed the suspicion he'd harbored for years, about Rylock and Ser Bradley (good old _Biff_) and their _service to the Maker_. Cold fury flooded his veins, at the senseless hypocrisy of it all. "_Honorable _men, hmm?" he sneered, throwing caution to the wind – what was the use, anyway? "Honorable like your dear Biff? How long, precisely, have you been screwing him in service to the Maker, my dear?"

She turned on him with the wild eyes of an animal, sword coming free of its scabbard with a muted ring. _Like a rabid _dog, he thought distantly as he returned her glare with all the insouciance he could muster. _Just another sheep, following the Chantry shepherd. But of course, she finds way to write off her own little indiscretions. _"Don't you have vows?" he taunted, not even feeling the rough jerks and shoves of the Templars around him now. "Doesn't _service to the Maker _include a vow of chastity? You've been a very, very _naughty_ girl, Ms. Templar. I'm sure you figure if you slaughter enough mages, it'll even out, but I have to wonder..."

"Enough!" The words (along with a healthy dose of Rylock-spittle) hit him full in the face like a fist, heavy with rage and denial both. She raised the sword, and he watched it with something approaching relief._ Get it over with, just do it and be done with it..._

Behind Rylock, the warehouse door flew open, rebounding off the wall with a crash that echoed through the cavernous, hollow space.

"Don't you _dare_," the Warden Commander said.

The blade was already descending, but the unexpected intrusion had shattered the furious Templar's concentration. Instead of slicing through his neck, the sword lost some momentum and plunged obliquely through the meat of his shoulder. Hot pain bloomed, blood gushed, and Anders' vision wavered alarmingly. Somehow, Rylock had enough time to register the pain she'd caused him, to offer him a sly, promising little grin before turning to face the interloper. _Sodding bitch._

The Templars holding his arms shoved him roughly aside, and he leaned heavily against the wall, struggling to remain upright as they moved into a protective semi-circle around their own commander. Through the black spots and pinpoints of light dancing across his eyes, he watched Wardens move across the room to meet Templars, Rowan striding confidently ahead of Oghren and Nathaniel, her blades already drawn. So cold and bitter at times, so strangely lostat others... but _now_ she was ablaze, eyes black with fury, and she was _magnificent_. _This_ was the woman he'd impulsively pledged to follow; he hadn't really seen her since that first night. Outnumbered significantly, still she faced the Templars with something approaching arrogance. "You _do _understand that interfering with my men is high treason, do you not?" Her voice was seductively low and incredibly threatening.

Rylock, of course, was _much _too far gone to realize precisely what she faced. "I answer to no one but the Maker," she shot back imperiously.

Rowan circled, catlike, intent upon her prey, all but ignoring the other Templars. "I," she purred, "simply answer to no one."

_Putting on a bit of a show, are we, Commander?_ She was _enjoying_ herself, he realized, all but reveling in it. _If you were like this all the time, Warden Commander, I believe I could very well fall in love with you._

"_All _answer to the Maker in the end, Grey Warden. And the mages are solely _our _responsibility. You can threaten me all you like, but this murderer will not live to take another life."

The Commander simply stared at the Templar for a moment, equal parts disgusted and incredulous. She closed her eyes, briefly... and when she opened them, they were shot with pure white light, its glow casting shadows over the long room. Blade in hand, she raised an arm in the direction of Rylock and her Templars.

And _smote _them.

The nimbus of white light unfurled in a perfect circle, coursing through the pack of armored men like a wave, stunning them all senseless. _Didn't even know those did anything to non-mages_, he thought a little wildly. _And when was she going to get around to telling me that she's a..._

Nathaniel was suddenly beside him, his fingers curling around one bruised bicep with the same roughness as the Templars in his haste. Anders stumbled along behind the archer, let himself be led into the far corner, where he sagged against the wall, safely behind the Wardens now. The Commander's righteous fury energized him somehow, and his vision cleared, his eyes roved avidly across the cluster of addled Templars. Three Wardens stood against six or seven Templars – and there was no question in his mind that Rylock and her ilk stood no chance.

From this new vantage point, he was able to watch Rylock's face as she came back to her senses, was able to watch the zealous rage take her. "Heresy!" she cried, eyes flashing. "You will answer for this blasphemy, you..."

Rowan stepped forward quite calmly, raised her sword, and the Templar's head separated neatly from her shoulders and bounced onto the floor, spraying blood as it rolled wildly. The remaining Templars stared for a moment, stunned as efficiently as though they had been hit with another smite, and then raised their swords to attack.

It was over in moments, and it was a bloodbath. He watched with a combination of sheer amazement and horror as she spun amongst the press of silverite-clad bodies, sheathed in a red aura of rage and madness, teeth bared and eyes wide with bloodlust. Like toy soldiers scattered upon the floor, they fell... to the dwarf's axe, to the archer's arrows, and to the Warden Commander's twin blades. Consciousness was a slender thread to which he clung desperately, _needing _to watch this, needing to _see _that _sometimes I sodding __win__. _

As the last Templar crashed to the ground with one of the Commander's swords protruding from his throat, Anders slid to the floor, relinquishing himself gladly to the Fade.

* * *

He awoke once more to pain, and for a terrifying moment, he thought it had all been a dream, that he was still lying on the warehouse floor, trussed up and awaiting his own execution. As clarity descended, however, he became aware of the soft surface beneath him, the notable _lack _of ropes or restraints. The air was warm and close, and smelled of candle-smoke and fresh linen with just the slightest flavor of stale ale. Near to hand was the sound of breathing, soft and steady, and more distantly, the murmur of voices raised in conversation, the occasional shout for a fresh tankard.

He opened his eyes and shifted slightly... which turned out to be a really _terrible _idea, because Maker did everything _hurt_. His head pounded in time with every heartbeat, and there was a deep, raging ache in his shoulder that grew to _magnificent _proportions with even the slightest twitch of movement. His eyes rolled in their sockets, taking in his surroundings as he struggled to resolve past with present, account for lost time. He was in the inn, of course, propped against a generous pile of cushions on a narrow bed beside a window, through which he could see the red and gold glow of sunset. _I've lost an entire day._

Though the movement pulled and _stretched _everything, tugging at the torn tissue of the stab wound, he turned his head slightly, to find the Commander propped in a stiff-backed chair mere feet away, feet braced against the edge of the bed, watching him with an inscrutable expression. He wondered what, exactly, one _said _in these situations. _Thanks for saving my ass again?_ _So, behead any zealots lately? _"So you're a Templar," was what actually came out.

She smiled at this, actually _smiled_ (_because certainly the whole thing is just hilarious, honestly_). "No," she said simply.

He raised an eyebrow – this being possibly the only movement that didn't _hurt_. "What, then, you started chugging lyrium just so you could expand your battle repertoire?"

Her feet left the bed frame and met the wooden floor with a dull _thud_, and she rested her elbows on her knees and leaned towards him almost conspiratorially. "Let me fill you in on a little secret, Anders. Lyrium isn't _necessary_. Any warrior with a little discipline can throw a smite. Alistair" - and of _course _he didn't miss the slight hitch in her voice when she said the king's name - "... taught me a few tricks during the Blight. _He _never took lyrium either."

"So it really is just a leash," he murmured, turning over this distinctly _interesting _bit of trivia in his mind. "The Chantry controls the lyrium trade, so once the Templars get addicted..."

"... they're stuck, unless they want to go mad from withdrawals," she finished for him. "Precisely. In some respects, they're as much Chantry prisoners as the mages."

"Hmph. Were it not for the small matter of _insane zealotry_, I could _almost _believe that."

"_Life _is a prison, Anders," she said softly. "We're all inmates. The lucky ones only get to choose which cage to be locked into." How suddenly and incredibly bitter she looked – and yet, so _human_, for a change, open and angry and _real, _rather than a stone hero hiding behind a veneer of capable civility. It was becoming inordinately fascinating, really, trying to discern the shape of Rowan Cousland behind the mask of _Warden Commander._

"What an optimistic observation." His half-hearted attempt at a sarcastic grin turned quickly to a grimace as he shifted and a hot arrow of pain slashed down from his shoulder all the way to his gut. "_Ow_," he said distinctly.

She was on her feet beside the bed in one smooth movement, gently but firmly pressing him back into the pillows. "You are an _incredible _baby when you're injured," she muttered as she sat upon the edge of the mattress.

He tried not to chuckle at the scolding tone of her voice. "Can't help that I've been rather spoiled by the ability to mend quickly." He shrugged, and hissed when the movement evoked another stab.

"Be still, and let me check this," she said almost absently, drawing the corner of the cloak aside and peering at the layer of bandages over his shoulder.

He watched her with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation, waiting for the inevitable _You were trying to escape, and we caught you_ speech. She was totally silent and contained, however, her expression as cool as the slender fingers bracing his arm. There was a large bruise over one eye, a neat split in her eyebrow, and a red, angry slash along the corner of her mouth; he actually started reaching for her, to _fix it,_ before remembering that he was still drained and thus utterly incapable. He pictured her again, facing the Templars, and a sudden wave of guilt washed through him. _How do I even begin to explain this? _"Commander, I..."

"There's no need, Anders," she said quietly, eyes still intent as she tried to carefully pry the bandage away from his skin without disrupting anything. "Nathaniel followed you; he overheard the Templars discussing their trap."

Guilt turned immediately to irritation. "Good to know I'm so well-trusted amongst my fellow Wardens," he muttered.

She looked up sharply (and there she went with that sodding _eyebrow _again). "He was _concerned_. He said you were acting oddly, and he just had a bad feeling." Her eyes traveled back to the now-exposed wound on his shoulder. "He was looking out for you. Had he not followed, you'd be dead now, and we'd probably never have known what happened."

_You'd be dead now._ It was a sobering thought, particularly because it was _true_... even knowing where to find him, they had cut it close. Had they entered the warehouse even seconds after they did, it would have been _his _head rolling across the floor, rather than Rylock's. _How very close you came, Anders, to just... ceasing to exist._ "I should have _known _it would be a trap," he said bitterly.

She said nothing, and he studied her as she focused on replacing his bandage, with more care than was perhaps necessary. She was _fussing_, he realized with a surge of unexpected fondness; the stoic and serious Warden Commander was actually _fussing. _There was absolutely no reason to check the wound; as soon as his power replenished, the deep laceration, along with all the other assorted bruises and cuts, would be gone, as if they'd never existed. "I'm sorry, Commander," he murmured. "The opportunity just dropped into my lap, and I just... didn't think it through. That cache... it was the reason I was _here _in the first place, in Amaranthine... before the Vigil. They put me in solitary confinement for a _year_ the last time they caught me, and I just couldn't _stand _that there was still that link, that they could still find me." _Of course it had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that you were just getting ready to run __again__..._

She had gone very still, the moment the words _solitary confinement_ left his lips; she very carefully resettled the cloak over him and her eyes traveled slowly to his face. "Solitary," she repeated blankly. "For a _year_."

He nodded solemnly and shut his eyes against the returning guilt. _Don't look at me with such sympathy and such outrage, not after I tried to walk away._

She was silent for a long time; he could feel her gaze resting on him, and resisted the urge to squirm uncomfortably under the weight of it. "I would have gone with you, you know," she said finally.

He opened his eyes, and it was _her _that looked back at him, Rowan Cousland, the apparent mage-sympathizer and seemingly decent human being. The inscrutable Warden Commander had, for the time being, faded into the background. "I know you would have," he sighed, almost surprised to realize that he actually _believed _it.

She sat back with a sigh of her own, pulling her legs up onto the mattress and tucking her knees up to her chest, toying idly with a buckle on her boot. "You can't run forever, Anders," she said carefully. "At some point, you're going to have to pick a spot, and make your stand."

She knew, then. Of _course _she knew; it was easy to forget how eerily sodding perceptive she could be, how gracefully she danced through negotiation and conversation and _played _everyone so neatly. "I just didn't expect it to be so..."

"... bloody horrifying?" She smiled humorlessly, her expression still unguarded, bleak and a little bit _lost. "_I suppose despite all my warnings, I did give you a bit of a hard sell on the Wardens. But I recruited you because you seem to want to _do something. _And when you choose to act, you have to make peace with the fact that no matter how hard you try, it's all going to go to shit sometimes. I _broke a Blight_, Anders; according to the brainwashed masses, I'm a bloody hero. Ask them, and they'll tell you all about it. They'll tell you how I found Andraste's ashes, saved the Circle from Annulment, even averted a civil war. What the stories _don't _talk about, is how I put a murderer on the throne in Orzammar, or allowed the blood-magic sacrifice of an Arlessa, or pardoned a traitor who was indirectly responsible for the deaths of my own _family_, just so I would have an extra Warden to throw at the Archdemon. It's so much _easier_, to glorify it all, when you're on the outside, looking in. You can run from Chantry oppression all you want – I'll sodding _help _you. But you can't run from reality, Anders."

"How do you deal with it?" he asked quietly, watching her with a kind of melancholy fascination. "How do you _make peace_ with it?"

She shrugged. "You stay focused on the bigger picture, I suppose. Had I not helped Bhelen attain the dwarven throne, we would have marched on Denerim without their aid, in the final battles. Had I not sanctioned the Arlessa's death, I would have either condemned an entire _town _to death, or I would have had to slaughter a demon-possessed child. And had I not pardoned Loghain..." Her eyes went distant for a moment, and she gave another of those distinctly un-amused laughs. "Well, that one didn't work out as planned, in the end; Alistair refused to fight at his side, and left the Wardens, so I ended up just trading one for the other. But I suppose it _did _work out, in a way, because had Loghain _not _been with me on Fort Drakon, there at the end... Well, I've told you what's necessary for an Archdemon to die. Either the King, or myself, would have made that sacrifice in his stead."

Her expression was almost _wistful_, as she said it, and with a sudden flash of insight, he wondered if she didn't still regret not making that sacrifice. It was... a bit _too much _to contemplate, at the moment, and he strove to change the subject. "What are you going to do with them? The Templars. Or... what's left of them, I suppose."

"I haven't decided yet," she admitted. "I should probably just burn them and be done with it, but should anyone ever discover what happened in that warehouse, it would only appear that I felt the need to cover it up. And I wasn't lying to Rylock – she was committing treason. The Chantry might not see it that way, but last I checked, the Chantry didn't wear the crown." She gave him a sudden, slightly crooked smile, one of those rare _real _smiles that always made him feel damnably _warm_. "I've half a mind to ship them back to Greagoir tied with a big red bow. An early Satinalia present from the Wardens."

"Yes," he muttered, rolling his eyes theatrically, "because _that _would end well."

"You forget," she pointed out, "that I know Greagoir well. Difficult as it may be for you to believe, he's not completely a bad sort. More importantly, he knows full well not to meddle in my affairs. And you, Anders, are _my _affair now. Not his, not the Chantry's, or the Grand Cleric, or the sodding _Divine_."

The unaccustomed flush of warmth he felt in response to this statement discomfited him. _Here you are again, falling into complacence so easily._ Was it really complacence, though? Twice over now, they'd come for him, meaning to _end _him. And twice over, she'd saved him. If she was right, if _life was a prison_, wouldn't he choose _this _cage? He carefully schooled his expression into a wolfish leer, tucking the turmoil carefully beneath. "Your _affair_, hmm?" he murmured lasciviously. "Well, why didn't you say so before?"

"Ass." She rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth twitched up in a faint smile. "My _point _is, I will back you up, Anders... if you _let _me."

"Fair enough," he replied, and then, softer, "Thank you, Commander."

She reached out and squeezed his hand briefly, and then slid off the bed, the businesslike _Warden Commander _already falling back into control. "Rest up," she ordered. "As soon as you're back on your feet, we have a Darkspawn nest to exterminate. Nothing like a little time underground, setting Darkspawn on fire, to clear your head."

He shivered a little at the thought. _Wonderful._


End file.
